Book a repair online - Customer Portal development

We invited customers to carry out some pilot testing of this new function and give us their feedback before we released it online.

What we asked

We advertised a project on Platform Voices for customers to participate in the 3-part project – an online demonstration of the new function, carry out a series of tests on the system in their own time, and complete a feedback form. We completed 4 online demonstrations with volunteers and then gave them access to a test version of the system to carry out the tests and report back to us their findings. We asked customers to tell us their experience of using the booking system – how easy or difficult it was, did the language we use make sense, did it work as it should, would they want to use this online self-reporting function in future etc.

What people told us:

These are some of the feedback comments we got from customers who completed a survey after using the book a repair online function:

• Fast. Simple and easy. Updated with time and date of repair within minutes. Very efficient.
• This works so much better than reporting a repair, hoping you’re off work on the date they give you, having to rebook etc. Booking yourself is 1000% times better.
• Title "Self Service Repairs" isn’t clear that you can book your own appointment.
• Prefer to speak to someone about it on the phone or face to face.
• Ease of booking an appointment and all the information was there to be able to book that appointment, much quicker to raise a repair.

What changed – How we improved:

• We changed the name from ‘Self Service Repair’ to ‘Book A Repair’ to make it clearer what the function was for.
• We increased the font size of the wording where possible.
• We created a user guide for the Book A Repair system which is available on our website and a Frequently Asked Questions section on the customer portal.
• We advised customers testing the system that the availability to book a repair on the customer portal is an additional method, it is not intended to replace any existing method of reporting a repair e.g. telephone calls.

Any other details

The Book A Repair function went live in September 2025 with a limited list of non-emergency, frequently reported repairs, for customers in general needs rented homes only. In October 2025 we carried out a survey asking customers for their feedback on their experiences of using the function, and their comments are noted above. We intend to carry out another survey in the future to gather customer feedback before exploring adding more reportable repairs, or adding other tenancy types useability to the customer portal.