Accommodation Survey 2011/12

The results are in!

86% of you are satisfied with your overall experience of living in University accommodation.
In November, we asked you what you thought about living in University accommodation in our annual survey and over 1,500 of you responded. We’re constantly looking at ways in which we can improve your accommodation experience, and the results from the survey and all your comments really are invaluable in helping us to do this.

The feedback you give us really does make a difference to the services and facilities we provide. We’re always looking to improve and based upon the survey results, we’ll implement changes to benefit you during your stay and future residents.

Here’s what you said:

Your pre-arrival experience was positive, although you felt that we could still do more to improve the application process and the level of information about the different types of accommodation.

Our website already has 360° photos of the different types of accommodation but we’re reviewing it to make sure that we have all the information you could ever want about University accommodation. We have a lot of different properties, so it’s hard to show everything, but we’re doing our best!

Arriving in Sheffield was generally a smooth process, but you’d like more people to help with directions and carrying bags.

Arriving in a new city can be a daunting experience and we know you want to find your room, get unpacked and settle in as quickly as possible. So for 2012 we’re going to look at the number of staff we have available to help students move in.

You thought having an online inventory was great, but you’d like longer to complete the communal areas section so it can be done with your flatmates.

We know there were a few issues with logging onto the online inventory and these have been resolved, but we’re also going to investigate how the sections for communal areas are completed so that you can complete it with your flatmates.

You’re not sure of which launderettes you can use and it’s frustrating for you when there aren’t any machines available.

Our new LaundryView system lets you see which machines are available and how long machines in use have left on their current cycle.

Those of you living in some of our older properties felt that the standard of accommodation could be better and would like to see them refurbished.

We’ve planned some refurbishments of the older properties over the next few years to make sure they’re the high standard that you expect from us.

You loved the fact that the eatwithUS Card allowance could be carried over from one week to another, but weren’t sure of how to make the most of your allowance and what you could get for your money.

The eatwithUS Card works as a catering contribution, and to help you make the most of it, we’ll be running regular features in Digs and online to show you what you can eat and where.

For those of you who’ve had to report a maintenance issue, you found it really easy to do so and you thought the service you received from our maintenance teams was good.