Town & Country: from “here we go again” to “embedded into our culture”
Theo Scott had heard plenty of pitches for tools that would make sense of resident feedback. A proof of concept with Wordnerds won him over, and then two executive teams. Here's how Town & Country Housing turned what residents write into evidence that gets things fixed.
Last updated 10 November 2026
Hear Theo and Shaiann tell the story
Theo Scott and Shaiann Payne from Town & Country Housing. Duration: 6 minutes.
At a glance
Town & Country Housing, with over 13,000 homes
Told by Theo Scott, Customer Data and Insight Manager
Residents' comments changed repairs and estate services
Monthly resident insight reports for five service areas
The challenge
Residents had plenty to say, and nobody could read it all consistently
Before Rosebery Housing merged into Town & Country, Theo Scott was its customer experience manager, looking after the contact centre, resident involvement and complaints. Residents rarely came to meetings, but they were happy to answer surveys, so the team added open questions asking why people gave the score they did.
Residents answered. Theo spent hours in Excel sorting their comments into themes, and the theme a comment got could depend on how he felt that day. It was hard to be consistent, and hard to trust the trends, just as the regulator was expecting landlords to show they understood their residents.
Agencies rang regularly offering the next best thing. When Wordnerds called, his first thought was “here we go again”.
A proof of concept found something nobody had connected
The demo was simple, and Theo likes simple. But housing has always been slow to take up new technology, and only one other housing provider was using a tool like this at the time. Asking the executive team to be pioneers on a gut feeling wasn't going to work, so Theo asked for a proof of concept, something Wordnerds didn't offer back then.
Rosebery sent a year of transactional survey results. Wordnerds analysed them and presented what it found at a webinar for the executive team and customer-facing managers. Most of it confirmed what people suspected, with far more detail. One finding stood out.
When a resident reported a repair, the confirmation text went only to the named tenant, so whoever had actually rung often never heard about the appointment. And residents who got the text rated the repairs service more favourably than those who didn't. Rosebery changed the system so the person who raised the repair got the text too, and the executive team gave the go-ahead to sign up.
After the merger, Theo had to win a second organisation over
Then Rosebery merged with Town & Country, and the new organisation was sceptical. Town & Country already had good Power BI dashboards for its numbers, but nothing that showed what residents were saying. So Theo's team started sending monthly insight reports to customer-facing managers, and sat down with each one to ask whether it helped.
Every month, Shaiann Payne, Customer Data and Insight Officer, uploads nine transactional surveys and the Tenant Satisfaction Measures to Wordnerds. The team has trained Wordnerds on the issues it reports on, so when Shaiann logs in, the comments are already sorted by theme. Each comment also carries its postcode, so a report can zoom in on a single estate.
At Waters Edge, residents' own words got the estate new taps
Waters Edge is one of Town & Country's largest estates, and residents in every block complained the communal cleaning wasn't up to standard. A deep dive in Wordnerds found the same complaint again and again. Residents said the contractor was cleaning with dirty water.
At the next contract meeting, the team brought reports covering months of comments and showed the contractor exactly what residents had written. Theo expected the contractor to get defensive. Instead, it admitted the problem. There was nowhere on site to get clean water, so the cleaners brought water in and kept reusing it. Town & Country installed taps around the estate, and the contractor now has no excuse.
What residents wrote changed how Town & Country works
Three changes, each traced back to residents' comments.
Repairs texts reach the right person
Whoever reports a repair now gets the appointment text, not only the named tenant, because residents who got one rated the service more favourably.
Clean water at Waters Edge
Taps installed around the estate mean the cleaning contractor can use clean water, after residents' comments showed the problem.
Residents see their feedback used
In service improvement groups for repairs and estate services, the team shows residents how their comments are analysed in Wordnerds and acted on.
What changed
Resident feedback now drives service improvements across Town & Country
Town & Country Housing won over a cautious organisation with evidence from what residents write. A Wordnerds proof of concept on a year of surveys convinced the first executive team, and monthly insight reports won round its managers after the merger. Its insight team now analyses nine transactional surveys and the Tenant Satisfaction Measures in Wordnerds every month.
For Theo, Wordnerds is like a new member of staff who's never off sick or on holiday, and the business case for more people never had to be written. Shaiann puts the time saved at about 11 hours a month, more than a full working day, which the team now spends turning findings into recommendations for managers.
After a webinar the team ran with Wordnerds for 18 service leads, the planned maintenance team asked for its own reports, to find out what was behind its dissatisfied residents.
Theo's advice to other housing providers is not to be scared of AI. It saves time, it's accurate, and it shows where to focus, with evidence managers can see for themselves.
Key metrics
15,000Voices heard
40Working days saved
About Town & Country Housing
Town & Country Housing, part of the Peabody group, manages over 13,000 homes across Surrey, Kent and Sussex. Its aim is to provide safe and comfortable homes, with services shaped by what residents say.
About Wordnerds
Wordnerds turns what customers say into what organisations do. We ingest feedback from surveys, complaints, reviews, calls and social; apply transparent, explainable AI to surface themes and drivers; and serve the insight two ways from one semantic model: full-detail Power BI for analysts, plain-language AI-chat answers for everyone else. Built for UK housing associations, transport operators and regulated sectors that need auditable evidence, not a black box.
Questions housing leaders ask
How do you get a cautious housing association to trust AI with resident feedback?
Start with a proof of concept on your own data. Theo Scott asked Wordnerds to analyse a year of transactional surveys and present the findings to the executive team and customer-facing managers. The evidence, including a repairs text-message problem nobody had connected to satisfaction, won the go-ahead to sign up.
How do you use resident comments to hold a contractor to account?
Show the contractor what residents wrote, word for word, over a period of time. At Town & Country Housing's Waters Edge estate, Wordnerds reports showed residents repeatedly saying the cleaners used dirty water. The contractor admitted it had no access to clean water on site, and Town & Country installed taps.
How do you get service managers to use resident feedback?
Take it to them. Town & Country Housing sends monthly insight reports to customer-facing managers and checks with each one whether they helped. After a webinar with Wordnerds for 18 service leads, the planned maintenance team asked for its own reports to find out what was behind dissatisfied residents.
Can a small insight team keep up with resident feedback every month?
Town & Country Housing's customer data and insight team uploads nine transactional surveys and its Tenant Satisfaction Measures to Wordnerds each month and reports on five service areas. Because the team trains the themes on what it looks for, it estimates the work saves about 11 hours a month.
What would Wordnerds surface from your feedback?
Book a diagnostic and we'll look at your customer feedback together — and show you the themes hiding in it.
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