Why listening to your community is important for Housing Associations in the UK

In the housing sector, 2026 has become a landmark year. With Awaab’s Law and a stronger focus on Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs), the standard for successful engagement has increased, and with good reason. Resident engagement is no longer a “nice-to-have”, it is a “must-do.”

At Orlo, we’ve seen this shift firsthand and we’ve tailored our Voice of the Community (VOC) solution to help Housing Associations navigate these new requirements. 

To see how real Housing Associations are getting on, we recently sat down for a candid chat with Jo Gallagher, Head of Customer and Community Engagement at Accent Group (which manages 21.5k homes across 66 local authorities), and Richard Wilkinson, a resident of 35 years, non-executive board member, and a heavily involved customer. Hosted by our housing expert, Sam Walker, the session looked at what it really means to listen, understand, act, and empower residents.

For years, resident engagement often felt like a compliance exercise, a box to tick for the regulator. Jo Gallagher was clear: that era is over. To drive real engagement, you need to move beyond a “compliance-first” mindset to build a genuine culture of listening.

• Start with a clear purpose: Don’t just build a committee because you think you have to. Ask why you are engaging and what you actually hope to change.
• Share the load: There is a big difference between consultation (asking for opinions on a plan you’ve already finished) and co-creation (building the plan with residents from day one).

Real engagement is where technology like Orlo comes in handy as a way to automate the “must do” TSM transactional surveys. This means that teams can step away from the spreadsheets and spend more time on what really matters: working side-by-side with residents.

One of the most powerful moments in the webinar came from Richard. While most landlords use the phrase “you said, we did,” Richard suggested we change that to “you said, we felt.” 

Data is essential, but it can be cold. Richard highlighted that unless a change “lands on the doorstep” and the residents actually feel the improvement in their daily lives, you haven’t really closed the loop.

“Intent is there, but unless it lands on my doorstep and me and my neighbours feel it… it hasn’t quite been done.” – Richard Wilkinson

So how can Housing Associations close the loop effectively?

• Impact reports: Accent uses these to tell residents what they did, why they did it, and what the impact was.
• Explain the “why”: If you can’t do something because of budget or regulation, tell them.

A common challenge is that the same small group of engaged residents tends to provide all the feedback. But what about the “silent majority”? Without hearing from them, you can’t truly understand the thoughts and feelings of your entire community.

So, how can you reach them?

• Social listening: This is a vital tool for reaching those who don’t attend meetings, and are hard to track down via your complaints system. In short, you don’t hear much from them at all. Orlo’s social listening tool allows you to hear what is being said about you, even if it isn’t directed to you.
• Surveys: Surveys via Orlo act as an early warning system as it means you can identify issues like a broken lift or estate lighting in the moment, before they spiral into a crisis.

With Orlo, you’ll also have a tool that acts as your “always on” TSM machine.

By automating transactional surveys (e.g., “how was your repair today?”), you’ll be able to gather the required evidence for the regulator in real-time. You don’t just “pass” the inspection, you have a live dashboard of tenant satisfaction scores (STAR survey style) ready for the Board at any moment.

Richard noted that “sorry” remains a difficult word in housing. The team also chatted about how trust is broken by national headlines like the Grenfell disaster, as well as the smaller things like a missed cleaning appointment. 

The fix? Empathy, transparency, and (where warranted) a simple “we’re sorry”. 

A great place to start is by using Orlo’s unified inbox, so that different teams can collaborate on these responses, ensuring the tone is consistent, friendly, and supportive across every channel.

We’ve all got too much data and not enough time. The challenge is getting to the insight faster, and this is where technology can step in to help you do more with less.

Sam highlighted how Orlo’s Voice of the Community (VOC) solution helps bridge this gap between data and insight. By combining direct surveying with social listening, you get a 360-degree view of your community. This provides a “temperature check” throughout the year, so when annual TSM surveying comes around, you’ve already addressed the key issues because you were monitoring them in real-time. It also means that, as all the data and insight is in one place, the issue of “data silos” is easily solved. Teams can collaborate and access the insights to inform not just comms strategy, but wider policy strategy and organisational goals.

Richard suggested that instead of the landlord setting the agenda, you could always ask residents: “What are the two most important issues in your area?”

This allows Housing Associations to:

1. Give residents the power: Whether it’s repairs or bins, the residents lead on the issue they want to fix.
2. Triangulate data: They compare this feedback with TSMs and other anecdotal tech data (which Accent uses for verbatim analysis) to find the “gold dust” in the data.

Within Orlo, our Trust Indicator and analytics provide this same level of clarity, allowing teams to see where there are issues, where things are working well as well as highlighting emergency trends and themes amongst their customers.

As Richard said, “never give up.” Listening to your community is a marathon, not a sprint, and every conversation is a chance to strengthen that bond.

In the housing sector, we know you often talk about “the customer voice”, and at Orlo, we believe that voice shouldn’t just be a metric, it should be at the centre of your organisation. We provide the tools to make sure your residents feel heard, not just during big formal projects, but in the small, everyday moments that matter most.

There’s a big difference between sending out a legal notice and actually having a conversation. By staying active and helpful when interacting with your tenants online, you build a foundation of trust, so when the time comes for big changes or legal updates, your community already knows you’re on their side.

By closing the feedback loop and using a centralised platform to manage those interactions, you can build genuine trust and ensure your organisation is prepared for the challenges of 2026 and beyond.