The Peverel Satisfaction Survey 2009
As reported on Tuesday, Peverel are currently running a ‘Satisfaction Survey’ that is being undertaken by an independent market research company called ‘The Research Factor’
Our understanding is, only a ‘selected’ number of residents appear to have received these questionnaires…. possibly to ensure that their ‘research’ reports a positive response to make Peverel / Solitaire or whoever – appear better than they really are!
As all the Peverel / Solitaire companies are the same thing – Consensus Business Group – we feel that everyone should have the opportunity to respond to the questionnaire!
Therefore, we have published a copy of the Customer Satisfaction Survey for you to download and complete – that lets you have your say!
Okay, we know it’s not going to change anything, but lets cause a lot more work for ‘The Research Factor’ and let them know how we feel, whilst also worrying Peverel… (we’re pretty confident that they didn’t want this leaked on the Interweb!)
The downloads are available below:
Peverel OM Customer Satisfaction Survey – Cover Letter
Peverel OM Customer Satisfaction Survey 2009
Questionnaires need to be returned to the following address, by the 15th December 2009.
The Research Factor
PO Box 243
Billingshurst
RH14 4AF
Already, many other contributors have filled theirs in and have said that, The Research Factor are certainly in for a surprise when more replies are received, compared to those sent out!
We are cautious as to what is to stop Peverel / Solitaire – completing these questionnaires themselves and mailing them to TRF?
Would any of us be surprised, if they did?
Downing Street Petition – More Support Needed
Please keep up the support of the No.10 Downing Street Petition calling for regulation of the Property Management and Service Industry, which can be signed at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/flatownerhelp/.
So far we are up to 480 people (20 more to get before the 15 April 2010) – before this can be considered by the Government.
Thanks to everyone that has already signed it.
Right To Manage
There are many reports by CARLEX, advising that Peverel are trying to make it appear that going ‘Right to Manage’ is not beneficial and will not save you money.
CARLEX have more than enough evidence to prove that this is not the case and that Peverel are saying this to try and protect their cash flow!
Therefore, don’t be scared of going Right to Manage – it’s the way forward if you want to stop being ripped off by companies such as Peverel / Solitaire / Consensus Business Group property management companies!
January 15th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Dear TTAS Admin re. the Peverel OM Customer Satisfaction Survey 2009 Results – I think they should now be available by sending an SAE (after 15 Jan) to:
Peveral OM Prize Draw Results
Research Factor Solutions
PO Box 883
Crawley
West Sussex
RH10 7ZQ
Would you be able to do this and publish the results (which would be quicker than one of us responding and sending it in to you, which i would be happy to do if you can’t!) Thanks.
January 15th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Seconded.
Can’t wait to find out who the lucky recipient of the “case of fine wines” is.
So, how long do we think it will take for the results to arrive…??? With my cynical hat on, I’ll go for never…..
Admin – can I suggest you send your request to the research company by Recorded Delivery, so that you can then check that it is received by them….. Which then removes the “we never received your request…” from the possible list of excuses…!!!
January 15th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Hi All
We’d very much like to write to obtain the winner of the wine, however, due to our ‘anonymity’ – it is possible that they would find out who we are.
Therefore, we are more than happy for any of the TTAS contributors to write and find out the winner.
We’ll the publish a post, revealing the winner – if there was one?
January 15th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Peveral OM Prize Draw Results
Research Factor Solutions
PO Box 883
Crawley
West Sussex
RH10 7ZQ
Dear Sir or Madam,
As per the Terms and Conditions of the Peverel OM Customer Satisfaction Survey 2009 (attached), point 10 I would be grateful if you could please supply me with the Name and County of the Prize Winner. I enclose an SAE.
I would also be grateful if you could also supply the results that you will be publishing of the Peverel OM Customer Satisfaction Survey 2009 to me via the enclosed SAE also.
If there is any problem with this then please let me know.
I look forward to hearing from you very soon with my above requests
January 15th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Well done Nirmal.
I look forward to your forthcoming post upon your receipt of the requested information. I won’t be holding my breath…..
January 21st, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Hi Nirmal & Matt,
The prize winner from the recent Customer Satisfaction survey has been drawn by the independent research company who have supplied us with the customer account reference number that is pre-printed on the survey. The name of the winning customer is a W. S_______ ,and they live in a Peverel OM managed development in Hertfordshire.
Their prize of a case of fine wines will be delivered to the winner in the next 7 days.
I should point out that only the results of the prize draw are available by writing to the research company, not the results of the survey itself.
I’d like to say thanks to everyone who sent a completed survey to the research company – we really do welcome all constructive feedback. The results of the research survey will be presented to us at the end of January.
Many thanks,
Andy
Solitaire Online Feedback Manager
January 26th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
All credit to them RESEARCH FACTOR SOLUTIONS did get back to me, and I quote:
“The Research Factor
PO Box 883
Crawley
West Sussex
RH10 7ZQ
T: +44 (0)1293 883292
F: +44 (0)0870 0634842
E: shirley@research-factor.co.uk
W: http://www.research-factor.co.uk
Dear Mr Patel,
Thank you for sending a stamped address envelope. I am pleased to inform you that the winner of the Prize Draw for a case of wine in the recent customer survey was:
Mr S—–e: Buckinghamshire
The draw was made in accordance with the terms and conditions set out on the back of the questionnaire.
You also asked if I could send you a copy of the findings: the survey results are for internal use, to be used for improvements to Peverel OM’s services. There are no plans to publish them.
Yours sincerely,
S Brent
Principal”
Andy, I know they are next door to each other but I would have thought that Peverel (a property company!) would have known the difference between the counties Bucks. and Herts.!? Though that might also go some way to explaining a lot of the problems there’s been with invoicing and communications from CBG companies recently?
Andy, also I cc’d you into an email I sent my PM via the Customer Services general email last Friday – I still haven’t heard anything back! Could you please chase that up for me as the matter is quite urgent, much obliged. Thanks.
January 27th, 2010 at 9:42 am
So “Andy” says the winner lives in Hertfordshire, but the research company says it’s Buckinghamshire. So, “Andy”, which is it? Or do Peverel just happen to manage a development that straddles the county boundary between Herts & Bucks…??? If not, who is right, and who is wrong?
In the grand scheme of things, this confusion on counties is minor, but then if two connected parties can’t get this one simple thing right, what hope is there? Are they singing off the same hymn sheet……????? Left hand, right hand? Ar5e, elbow…???
“Andy” – please explain how one competition winner seemingly lives in 2 different counties…!!!
And the survey results are for “internal use, to be used for improvements to Peverel OM’s services”. Well, time will tell, I guess…..
January 27th, 2010 at 11:57 am
I like to know if the surveying company was given access to all the leaseholders ( 56000+ ) of all the developments or not. Did the company selected independently the developments to survey out of all the developments? Were the forms were sent to each leaseholder of those selected developments, otherwise prime example of bu.l sh.t.
Another error who won the prize, no sir!!!
Sooner or later no one in the industry is going to believe CBG empire words. You still have time to reform by employing honest hard working staff or good bya CBG hallo leaseholder self management.
May 13th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Hi everyone
As I said on this and the other thread on this topic last December, we are commissioning more Customer Satisfaction surveys throughout 2010.
This is just to let you know that our latest independent research questionnaire has just been sent to a representative sample of Solitaire customers, selected at random from developments we manage across the country.
It’s important that we know the current views of customers on our service, the changes that we’ve made to date and how we might plan our services in the future.
We hope that any contributor to this site who receives a questionnaire would help us by completing it and sending it back in the pre-paid envelope to the independent research company by the 28th May 2010.
Please feel free to email me directly at andy.solitairepm@peverel.co.uk if you have any questions on this survey.
Hi Matt & Nirmal
Sorry I didn’t spot your posts back in January.
The winner of the last year’s OM Property Management survey Mr. S_____e lives in St. Albans which is, as I posted, in Hertfordshire. The independent research company made a small error in stating that his address was in Buckinghamshire for which they have me to apologise to Nirmal on their behalf.
Hope that this explains how this happened.
Thanks
Andy
Solitaire Online Feedback Manager
May 13th, 2010 at 10:05 am
I do hope I’m included within the “representative sample of Solitaire customers” who will be receiving this latest customer satisfaction survey. If I am, I can assure “Andy” that I will complete it & return it by the deadline date.
As a matter of interest, perhaps “Andy” could confirm how many people are actually included in this latest random selection? Are we talking a dozen? A hundred perhaps? More…??? Bearing in mind the many thousands of properties Solitaire manage, I would have thought a random “representative sample” would need to be a good number of people…???
May 13th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Matt,
I do not expect the whole of Peverel/CBG will be sent a satisfaction survey because of the expense!
Andy can you confirm who is paying for this survey?
May 13th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
The home page of Solitaire’s own website advises that they “manage in excess of 33,000 homes throughout England and Wales” – although whether they actually do “manage” them is up for debate…..
So, how big is a “representative sample”…??? If it’s 1%, then that’s 330 homes. 5% would be 1,650, 10% would be 3,300. How big does a sample have to be, before it can rightly be considered “representative”…???
So, once “Andy” confirms how many homes are actually being sent this latest customer satisfaction survey, we can see what percentage of the total Solitaire-managed portfolio this equates to….. An extremely small percentage, I’m guessing.
And surely the costs of this survey (plus others already completed, and more to come in the future) are being met in full by Solitaire / Peverel / CBG. After all, the service charges we pay go directly into development-specific trust funds, in which case none of our money could ever be diverted off to pay for such surveys…???
May 13th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Matt,
Mathematically spking (when statistically sampling a ‘population’) the actual Population Size is effectively irrelevant (if the sampling is done properly!)
Working on a ‘population’ of 33,000 Leaseholds; and using a ‘Confidence Level’ of 95% (most researchers use a 95% confidence level); and a ‘Confidence Interval’ of 5 (meaning that the margin of error is plus+ or minus- 5% – i.e. a total margin of 10% around the average) then you only need a sample size of 380 for a ‘good representation’ of the population.
If you increase this to a 99% ‘Confidence Level’ (with all other things being equal) then a sample size of 652 would be needed for a ‘good representation’
If you decrease the ‘Confidence Interval’ (i.e. want to be ‘more’ accurate) then for a ‘Confidence Interval’ of 1 (i.e. +/- 1%) you would need:
At a 95% ‘Confidence Level’ a sample of: 7,439
At a 99% ‘Confidence Level’ a sample of: 11,063
Again most researchers would use a ‘Confidence Interval’ of 5. Therefore if Solitaire are ‘going with the flow’ then at a 95% CL and a CI of 5 then they only need to use 380 stamps and envelopes for a ‘good representation’ – which should hardly break the Bank!
So you can see (as we’ve all seen with a lot of the opinion polls recently!) you can play with the statistics quite a bit – of course if you look at it simply then the more people you ask the ‘better’ and ‘more representative’ the results would be! The Confidence Interval calculations “assumes” you have a genuine random sample of the relevant population (this is a BIG assumption!) If your sample is not truly random, you cannot rely on the intervals at all. Non-random samples usually result from some flaw in the sampling procedure – which if Solitaire are reading this I take them back to my first line “if the sampling is done properly!” An example of such a flaw is to only call people during the day and miss almost everyone who works. For most purposes, the non-working population cannot be assumed to accurately represent the entire working and non-working population and there are many examples of how ‘random’ samples aren’t really random at all! It’s actually harder to be random than methodological! (Maths eh!) And also this all works best with simple Yes/No questions and answers, or where the choice is (quite) limited (that’s why a lot of these surveys use a 1-5 scale of bad to good!) when you consider people’s views and opinions then all this pretty much falls down as you can’t really have an average ‘view’ (though I pretty much know what people’s average view of Solitaire is!) Also the actual questions asked and how they are worded can have a significant impact on the results of ANY survey regardless of the maths behind it!
It would however be very interesting to know from Solitaire / Andy exactly how many people they would send their survey to. Of course you would have to factor in non-returns too but I very much doubt that they would release this information (as they haven’t released any of the result from the first survey either) as it would be quite indicative of how they are going about the process! We can but wait and see IF anything comes of it! (…I doubt it tho’)
May 13th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
PS Andy, I don’t really need an apology for getting Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire mixed up! I was being facetious in my original remarks on the subject! However I would require an apology from Solitaire for the scandalous and serious lack of service that I have experienced from them over the many years I’ve suffered at their hands and also from the excessive overcharging too! Care to make that step?
May 13th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
It is wonderful news to hear that a customer satisfaction survey is on its way. May I suggest some questions to be included?
When you telephone our wonderful new telephone system you must be pleased that ‘we care about you’. How many people were in the queue ahead of you? (Prizes to be given to those in double figures)
How long was it before we bothered to answer you? (12 minutes on Monday)
When you wrote and asked for information, and then followed up with reminders, how long did it take for us to respond? (2 months and counting)
When you asked us to fix your roof how long did it take? (3 years and counting)
When you asked us to replace missing drainpipes that were affecting the foundations how long did it take for us to arrange? (6 weeks)
When we send contractors did you notice that we don’t check their work?
Did you like last year’s 12% increase in service charge or did you think us unambitious? Would you prefer 15% this year?
Do you feel that our gardeners are a) hopeless b) pathetic or c) worth twice as much?
You may be aware that your cleaning contractor charges somewhere between £100 and £200 per hour. Do you think that this is a) wonderful b) creative or c) lacking in imagination.
Would you prefer your light bulbs to be changed by contractors from a) Brighton b) Marseille or c) Glasgow
You do feel privileged don’t you that your building is insured by Swiss Gnomes at twice the market rate?
I’m sure I’ve missed a few other necessaries off.
May 13th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Swiss Gnomes
Brilliant!! That’s the only thing EVER about our insurance that’s made me happy or laugh!
May 13th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Nimmal,
Whoever won the wine be it in Buckinghamshire or Hertfordshire good luck to them! They sure have some Bottle!
Message to Andy, that was facetious!
May 13th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Nirmal – you (and the rest of us…) have as much chance of receiving an apology from Solitaire for the scandalous and serious lack of service over the many years (oh, and also for the excessive overcharging too….) as Gordon Brown does of waking up & discovering that the Election result was all a dream & he’s actually won another term in No. 10…!!!
Neil – superb! Perhaps Admin could start a new thread on which we could post our own alternative questions to be included in a Solitaire (dis)satisfaction survey…!!!???
Michael Epstein – I’m wondering if the recipient of the bottle of wine from the last survey (actually, wasn’t it a “case of fine wines”, rather than a measly single bottle?) has consumed it, or donated it to his local car body shop as paint stripper…??? Anybody seen any bottles of Chateau CBG in their local Tesco’s…???
May 13th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Well I’m happy to say that I received a questionnaire – unluckily for Solitaire! It really made my night being able to complete it and vent some of my pent up frustration/anger. Unfortunately most of the questions had boxes for answers, ie how do you rate our customer service, numbers 1 – 5 (very good to very poor) and no you don’t win a prize for guessing what my scores were! There was a comments section at the end of the questionnaire however, no matter how small I wrote, I couldn’t fit all of my comments in there, and I tried, believe me!
I have had a bit of an up and down relationship with Solitaire, just when I begin to think we’re getting somewhere and resolving issues, they let me down yet again! So unfortunately for them the timing of this questionnaire was not good as I’m still waiting for answers to various emails sent repeatedly over the past few months.
I was also wondering who will foot the bill for this survey and although Solitaire may actually pay the invoice, I’m sure we’ll all pay for it somehow!
May 14th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Berni,
Any chance you can get a scanned copy of the new 2010 Survey over to Admin so that we can compare any differences with the 2009 Survey already available? You can remove your own comments and responses if you like – I’m just interested in the questioned they’ve now asked!
Also are you ‘managed’ by Solitaire or OM? I’ve asked Andy to confirm if this is a Solitaire or OM Survey that they are now conducting but am not sure if he will be forthcoming with the information.
Thanks.
May 14th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Hi everyone
Appreciated the response to my postings as I have been able to get some answers for you.
Our research questionnaire has just been sent to a sample of over 1500 Solitaire customers, selected at random across developments of various sizes and locations so to be a representative sample across the country.
As with the survey we sent to OM Property Management customers last year, we are again using the independent research company who are full members of the Market Research Society and bound by its strict code of conduct. Results of the survey will be presented to our senior management at an aggregated level – we won’t be given responses from individuals.
The cost of the survey is entirely borne by us.
The survey questions are the same as last year’s questionnaire as we want to compare the results, but we have added some additional questions to find out if a resident has lived in a leasehold property before, how long they have lived in their current property and would they buy a leasehold property again.
Hope this answers some of the questions raised.
Thanks
Andy
Solitaire Online Feedback Manager
May 16th, 2010 at 7:49 am
Andy great move.
I did ring VT to talk but i was not put throuh. Left the message
that he need to read your postings as they are not helping him.
If the same people I am being refered to then there is going to be
no change. It is not only I am made to lose but he is also losing.