June 3, 2025

Reactive to Proactive: How Gentoo Transformed their CX in 12 Months

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:

  • Boosted TSM satisfaction from 70% to 80%
  • Achieved a C1 regulatory grading
  • Earned certification as a Great Place to Work

All while supporting over 60,000 customers across 28,500 homes…

The Starting Point: Recognising the Need for Change

At the end of 2023, Gentoo were facing issues that will sound familiar to many in the sector:

  • Siloed working and fragmented communications
  • A reactive culture focused on compliance over prevention
  • Excel-based reporting that was out of date by the time it reached teams
  • High escalation rates from Stage 1 to Stage 2 complaints
  • Little visibility of insight across departments

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.”

Phase 1: Building the Foundation (Q1-Q2 2024)

Restructuring Around Customer Voice

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:

  • 5 Stage 1 handlers, renamed Customer Voice Partners
  • A Customer Complaint Lead focused on Stage 2 and Ombudsman cases
  • A brand-new Customer Insight Advisor role
  • A Customer Engagement Lead to ensure tenant voices fed into strategic decisions

Upskilling the Team

This wasn’t just a change in org chart — it was a serious investment in people. Gentoo delivered:

  • 7,000+ hours of training in customer excellence
  • A new CARE model (Clear, Assured, Respectful, Empathetic)
  • Behavioural skills development
  • Advanced complaints handling and resolution training

Upgrading Tech and Processes

Behind the scenes, they also overhauled the systems and processes that support good service:

  • Switched from Excel to Power BI dashboards
  • Introduced a complaints tracker system
  • Brought in a 15-point QA framework
  • Used SharePoint to automate governance workflows

External Validation and Assurance

To sense-check progress, Gentoo welcomed:

  • A deep dive inspection from the Regulator of Social Housing
  • Engagement sessions with the Housing Ombudsman
  • An external audit that delivered “substantial assurance”

Phase 2: Cultural Evolution (Q3-Q4 2024)

Creating a Great Place to Work

Gentoo knew that teams dealing with difficult conversations need support, so they built an environment that encouraged wellbeing, not burnout.

They introduced:

  • A more welcoming, relaxed office space with areas to decompress
  • A wellbeing zone with plants, quiet space, and even a tuck shop
  • Quarterly “brilliant conversations” instead of traditional appraisals
  • A culture of regular peer-to-peer celebration

“There’s genuine camaraderie in the team,” said McGuigan. “We all recognise this work is hard, but valuable.”

Making Insight Everyone’s Business

Insight wasn’t kept locked away in Customer Voice. Teams across Gentoo were given access to:

  • Live Power BI dashboards tailored to their work
  • Alerts and analysis built into existing workflows
  • Opportunities to act on insight quickly — rather than wait for monthly reports

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.

The Results: Measurable Impact

TSM Improvement

  • 📈 Overall tenant satisfaction jumped from 70% to 80%
  • 👍 Complaints satisfaction reached 40%, a marked improvement
  • 💬 Stability across key customer experience metrics

Operational Wins

  • Fewer Stage 2 complaint escalations
  • Better categorisation of service requests
  • A clear and fair compensation matrix
  • A happy, low-turnover Customer Voice team

External Recognition

  • C1 regulatory grading
  • “Substantial assurance” on independent audit
  • Officially certified as a Great Place to Work

What Made It Work?

Here’s what Gentoo credit as the key drivers of their success:

1. Culture Before Process

“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.”

2. Data for Everyone

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.

3. Customer-Led Accountability

Their six-member Customer Committee now meets every eight weeks, providing challenge and direction on how Gentoo serves its tenants.

4. Beyond Consultation

They’ve moved past traditional tenant engagement to more proactive, personal approaches:

  • Evening drop-ins in community centres
  • A new mobile unit hitting the road in 2025
  • Targeted outreach to reach “seldom heard” voices

Lessons for the Sector

🕰 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.

Looking Forward

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.

What other HA’s can learn from Gentoo 

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:

  • Invest in people
  • Share insight widely
  • Build a culture of curiosity
  • Treat tenant feedback as strategy, not admin

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:

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