An evaluation of the rationale of tenant satisfaction surveys

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Abstract
Over recent years the housing press in Britain has covered with increasing regularity details of surveys of tenant satisfaction in housing associations and local authorities. In the summer of 1989 the first article appeared in the specialist press of the UK market research industry related to a survey of tenant satisfaction (Roe and Martin, 1989). The article adds to the body of housing literature that assumes tenant satisfaction measures as the means of bridging the gap between the housing manager and the ‘silent majority’. Often incorporating explicit or implicit details of ‘how to do it’, such work has received little criticism. However, when setting out to measure any phenomena, we need to examine ‘What is the purpose of the measurement?’ and further: ‘What is the nature of the phenomena being measured?'; and ‘What utility do our measures possess?’. This paper examines these questions, related to tenant satisfaction. The concept of consumer satisfaction, the bedrock of the discipline of marketing, is examined in a business context to enable parallels to be drawn with the non‐profit‐making rented housing sector. This questions the rationale for conducting satisfaction surveys.

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