Engagement with customers ensures they live the lives they choose

A range of formal channels – including the annual customer satisfaction survey and the quarterly housing partnership meetings where customers scrutinise our performance – sit alongside more informal opportunities such as house meetings, customer visits and social events.

Since the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic, creating opportunities for customers to connect with each other has become an even more important strand of our approach. One of the ways we do this is through the customer collective, which meets regularly to learn, share information, socialise and support each other.

“A range of formal channels – including the annual customer satisfaction survey and the quarterly housing partnership meetings where customers scrutinise our performance – sit alongside more informal opportunities”

We’ve increased its frequency and placed focus on increasing the numbers. A timetable of events now runs alongside monthly meetings, featuring guest speakers and activities from quizzes to armchair exercise.

The group is not only of huge value to customers, but also to colleagues across the business. Members get involved in co-production initiatives to improve services. Most recent were the development of an induction session for new starters and safeguarding awareness training for customers. 

Regional representatives from the group will join me to deliver the training across the country, completing the circle of their involvement and allowing them to see the impact of their input.

We place huge value on face-to-face engagement. Teams and Zoom calls are one thing, but sitting with and listening to customers can’t be beaten.

It’s a challenge with customers spread across the country and, like every housing and support provider, limited time and resources. But by being smart and strategic, working closely with support managers and outreach teams, we can make sure every interaction is an opportunity to gather feedback and follow up, showing customers how their contribution is of value.

It’s also important for customers to see that senior staff value their views, so we’ve developed ‘have your say’ days. These are regular visits by myself and Julie Layton, our chief executive, where we catch up with customers, their friends and families.

Interestingly, what customers want from us and what their families want for them can differ, and these catch-ups are a valuable opportunity to delve into how we can support our customers and those who care about them in the best way.

Advance’s 50th birthday has not only given us a fantastic opportunity to reflect on how far services for people with learning disabilities and mental health issues have come – and they have come a long, long way looking back at how things were done 50 years ago – but also to have some fun with our customers.

“With or without the new regulations, we’d be engaging with our customers in every way we can because we need and want to”

We know that when they are relaxed and doing something they want to be doing, our customers engage more. After all, how many of us would choose to sit in a two-hour meeting to share our thoughts, rather than doing it while having a bit of fun, taking part in an activity, a party or a walk?

This year, in addition to our usual offerings, customers have chosen the theme for the birthday celebrations – Hawaiian and colourful – and we’ve been hosting parties at schemes across the country, with hundreds of customers getting involved. It’s a lot of fun, alongside an opportunity for enhanced engagement, relationship-building and feedback, which will feed into our planning for the years ahead.

To ensure our customers can live the lives they choose – which is our vision for everyone we support – we need to engage on their terms. This is particularly crucial for us, considering the varied and complex needs of those we support, but is equally important across the sector in general.

Engagement is about enhancing people’s lives – people who don’t always find it easy to share their views or haven’t always been able to have a say in their own lives.

While engagement is now more of a focus in meeting the regulator’s requirements and scoring well on the

tenant satisfaction measures, for Advance, it isn’t the only driver.

With or without the new regulations, we’d be engaging with our customers in every way we can because we need and want to. Transforming lives is the reason we are here, and we can only achieve that through real and meaningful engagement.

Jaqueline Russon, customer engagement manager, Advance Housing and Support