"We received a lot of constructive feedback!"

As Berlin's leading housing company, degewo has been committed to the people of Berlin for 100 years. With almost 80,000 apartments and over 1,800 commercial units, it is one of the largest companies in the housing industry in Germany. Profitability, efficiency and technical innovation characterize degewo's work.

Thanks to its subsidiaries, the degewo can provide all services from one subcontractor. Whit 1,500 employees are passionate about all aspects of housing. degewo sees itself as a community and focuses on the needs of its tenants and deliver high quality standards.

In order to maintain and optimise this quality, degewo works on a variety of tools to increase tenant satisfaction. One that is used is the results of the tenant surveys.

The analysis of the feedback shows that degewo was able to improve in many survey points, especially compared to previous surveys.

"We received a lot of constructive feedback!" says Nadine Degen, Head of Portfolio Management, about the latest degewo tenant survey. This time, the survey took place as a full survey in south-east Berlin, supplemented by a sample survey in the other neighborhoods from the portfolios throughout the city.

degewo also performed very well compared to other companies. Customer service improved noticeably. This is due, on the one hand, to the establishment of the central customer advisory service and, on the other, to the ongoing digitalisation of customer service, for example through the expansion of the degewo service portal.

degewo communicates the survey results externally, but also within the company. The focus here is on further involving employees through motivation and using the results for follow-up communication with tenants.

In the second step, strategic conclusions were drawn from the results of the survey. One focus is the continuous  development and thus the quality improvement of customer service. This relates in particular to the optimisation of accessibility and the ability to provide information on processing statuses.

Another strategic goal is to maintain the good results in "fault reporting" at a high level, despite the difficult conditions in the market. The topics of waste disposal and bicycle parking facilities, which stand out in the Product Index, will also be examined even more closely.

Parallel to the strategic topics, the employees in the customer centers will derive operational actions. The free text fields in particular are of great importance for the local customer centers. The predominantly constructive feedback from tenants helps to take targeted actions in line with their needs.

Extract of initial measures derived:

• Optimizing accessibility by expanding the telephone software to include AI-supported tools for initial contact
• Increasing the attractiveness of the service portal by expanding the usage options and publicising it to tenants
• Increased proactive tenant information in order to avoid inquiries about customer concerns, in particular the status of damage reports
• Continuation of activities to improve the cleanliness of the garbage areas