Mystery Shopping
We are on the search for tenants and leaseholders who would like to form a Scrutiny Panel or to become Mystery Shoppers. By you being involved this will allow us to measure the quality of the service that we provide to you and make, where appropriate necessary changes to improve tenant experience. Volunteers will closely inspect how we deliver our services within the Housing and Neighbourhood Service and allow you to shape our services.
Our first Mystery Shopping project focused on the Customer Contact Centre. Our tenants wrote a report and recommendations with the support of an independent expert from the Yvonne Davies Consultancy. One of our tenants presented this report and recommendations to the Council's Transparency, Influence and Accountability Governance Board and then attending a further meeting to check on progress.
Our tenants have been involved in four separate projects during 2024 and 2025:
- Mystery Shopping of the Customer Contact Centre.
- Mystery Shopping and evaluation of Estate Services.
- Testing of the Automated Repairs Line.
- Investigation and evaluation of the Voids process.
Tenants have attended in-person meetings of our Housing Governance Boards to present their findings and recommendations. They then attend further meetings of the Governance Boards to hold managers to account. The feedback from these tenants has been positive; they felt listened to and said it was a worthwhile experience.
Our tenant meetings are supported by officers from the council and are held on a 'hybrid' basis. You can choose whether to attend in person or remotely via Teams, which is very similar to Zoom. This allows us to use the best technology for those attending remotely.
Coming very soon!
We will soon begin our fifth project. The focus of this project has not yet been decided.
Please visit our Ideas Board - see link below - and share your thoughts and suggestions with us by clicking on Ideas, then Have Your Say. There, you can also see the thoughts and suggestions of other tenants. Use the ideas board to tell us what you would like us to focus on in our next project. This could be repairs, rehousing, tenancy management or any other issue that is important to you.
If you would like to join the group and support the next project, email getinvolved@sheffield.gov.uk with your contact details, including your address and best contact telephone number, and your thoughts on what the tenant group should focus on.
You do not need to have any previous experience in this kind of project - your experience as a tenant of Sheffield City Council is what counts.