Let’s face it, acting on tenant feedback in social housing isn’t always easy. Between the pressure of new regulations, rising expectations from tenants, and the sheer scale of service delivery, it can feel like you’re always playing catch-up.
But every now and then, a success story comes along that shows what’s possible. Gentoo Group’s transformation over the last 12 months is one of them. From a reactive, compliance-driven culture to one powered by real-time insights and genuine curiosity about the customer voice, Gentoo’s journey is full of lessons that other housing providers can learn from. In our recent webinar, they shared how they:
All while supporting over 60,000 customers across 28,500 homes…
At the end of 2023, Gentoo were facing issues that will sound familiar to many in the sector:
Michael McGuigan, Customer Voice Manager, summed it up:
“We had a compliance team that was compliant, but there were opportunities to improve. There was quite a reactive culture, and we created a customer committee to hold us to account.”
The first big shift? Moving from a traditional complaints team to a broader Customer Voice function — signalling a shift from “complaints” to genuine listening.
The new structure included:
This wasn’t just a change in org chart — it was a serious investment in people. Gentoo delivered:
Behind the scenes, they also overhauled the systems and processes that support good service:
To sense-check progress, Gentoo welcomed:
Gentoo knew that teams dealing with difficult conversations need support, so they built an environment that encouraged wellbeing, not burnout.
They introduced:
“There’s genuine camaraderie in the team,” said McGuigan. “We all recognise this work is hard, but valuable.”
Insight wasn’t kept locked away in Customer Voice. Teams across Gentoo were given access to:
The result? Teams went from asking for reports to becoming proactive insight users. Data became part of everyday conversations, not a once-a-quarter obligation.
Here’s what Gentoo credit as the key drivers of their success:
“Culture is key to delivering improved performance,” says McGuigan. “You need good data and strong processes — but none of that works without the right mindset.”
Self-serve dashboards created a new hunger for insight across Gentoo. By making data easy to access and understand, they empowered people to take action.
Their six-member Customer Committee now meets every eight weeks, providing challenge and direction on how Gentoo serves its tenants.
They’ve moved past traditional tenant engagement to more proactive, personal approaches:
🕰 Don’t Chase Quick Wins with TSMs: “Don’t overreact to quarterly scores. Think long-term.”
🌱 Prioritise Team Wellbeing: Strong performance in complaints comes from well-supported teams. Investing in wellbeing isn’t fluffy — it’s strategic.
🧠 Let Tech Do the Admin: With Power BI and automated workflows, teams could spend more time using insight, not wrangling spreadsheets.
📊 Triangulate Everything: Complaints, TSMs, and engagement data all matter. Together, they tell a more complete story than any one metric alone.
Gentoo isn’t slowing down. The transformation work of the past year has laid a strong foundation, but they’re already looking to the future. Next on the roadmap is achieving TPAS accreditation, reinforcing their commitment to transparency, accountability, and trust in tenant engagement.
They’re also taking community outreach one step further with a mobile engagement unit, a physical presence that will bring conversations directly to tenants in their neighbourhoods, making it easier for “seldom heard” voices to be part of the feedback loop.
And we’re looking forward to working with Gentoo ourselves. Gentoo plans to use Wordnerds to automate even more of their feedback analysis, freeing up their team to focus on the human side of service and ensuring insight is acted on, not just collected.
Gentoo’s story proves that meaningful transformation is achievable with the right culture and processes. It starts with a mindset shift: customer feedback isn’t a compliance exercise, it’s fuel for improvement and the key to painting a picture of what’s working and what’s not.
If you want to build a CX function that works in practice, not just on paper, start where Gentoo did:
Because when everyone sees data as their business, change doesn’t just happen, it sticks.
Watch the full webinar with Michael McGuigan, VoC Manager at Gentoo Group, here:
