As an affordable housing property management provider, your first priority should always be to not only meet the needs of your residents but exceed their expectations. This requires understanding their unique needs, ideas and desires for the community, and what better way to collect those than by asking directly? Here are some helpful questions that can help you develop your own resident satisfaction survey.
Why should I care what residents think?
Considering resident feedback can improve the quality and effectiveness of the housing affordable housing property management providers facilitate. Residents are the ones living in these spaces day-to-day and are the best source of information on what is and isn’t working well. Gathering feedback can help affordable housing property management providers identify pain points and areas for improvement, helping residents to prioritize necessary changes and updates to enhance the living experience for residents.
We’ve created an example survey using the questions and prompts we’ve found helpful in gauging and improving our residents’ experience at our communities. Click the button below to download.
What should the resident satisfaction survey ask?
When we send out resident satisfaction surveys, we primarily focus on how social services impact the resident experience and how residents utilize Social Service Coordinators. We start by having residents share whether they use their Social Service Coordinators and, if so, how they use them. Questions include:
We then get more specific and gauge different areas of satisfaction regarding social services and have residents rank areas from very satisfied to very dissatisfied including the following:
We also ask about areas not related to social services and gauge satisfaction with the
Last, we provide residents space to leave comments, specifically around what they like best about living in their community, if there are any staff members they’d like to call out for doing a good job, whether they’d recommend their community to others and any additional comments they may have that they want to bring to leadership’s attention.
How do resident satisfaction surveys impact residents?
Satisfaction surveys can foster a sense of empowerment and inclusion among residents. By actively seeking their input, providers can create a culture of respect and collaboration, leading to higher resident retention rates, increased engagement and stronger communities.
We also affirm their contributions from the survey by anonymously sharing the results in our newsletter. This both lets residents know we’ve heard their input and holds us accountable to making changes based on their feedback since they know what the recurring comments are; it keeps the dialogue open.
How do resident satisfaction surveys help providers follow regulatory requirements?
Affordable housing property management providers must fulfill regulatory requirements, and satisfaction surveys can help achieve these while gauging performance against industry standards. Many funders and regulatory bodies require regular reporting on resident satisfaction as part of compliance and funding agreements. By regularly surveying residents, providers can ensure they are meeting requirements and benchmarks while also making evidence-based decisions to improve their services.
Residents always come first, and resident satisfaction surveys are the best way for affordable housing property management providers to make sure that their residents are being cared for in the ways they need.
Want to create a resident satisfaction survey of your own? Fill out the form below to download our template and get started today!
Want to put these tips into action? Fill out the form to download a free copy of a resident satisfaction survey template with questions and prompts we’ve found helpful in gauging and improving our residents’ experiences at our communities
Feel free to contact us for any future resident, current resident, or general inquiries.
