Colleague Blog: Georgie

Hello! I’m Georgie, Elims’ new Customer Service and Resident Engagement Officer.

I’m thrilled to start in my new role, and I’m looking forward to supporting Elim to increase customer involvement across the organisation.

I’ve joined Elim from a new housing developer in the Southwest where I focused on Customer Relations. I am keen to use some of the skills I have learnt to ensure an effective ‘feedback loop’ for residents, developing and promoting opportunities for residents to have their say in decision making and service development.

I’m particularly looking forward to spending time over the next few months getting to know more about Elim’s customers and the different priorities of residents across the wide range of communities and Elim services.

Customers First Approach

It has been useful for me to get up to speed on Elim’s plans for the next 4 years and I was pleased to see customer engagement as a primary focus of our corporate plan. Elim is also a signatory of the NHF Together With Tenants Charter and I will be using the charter as an important point of reference.

One of the most important aims of my role is to help Elim to deliver its new Customer Experience Strategy, which was agreed by the Board in March 2024. The overall purpose of this strategy is to continuously improve our customers’ experience and satisfaction with Elim’s services, and to achieve this I’ll be working on the performance information we share with our residents, and finding new ways for residents to give their view and influence our services.

There is also an aim to re-introduce and launch a formal customer scrutiny structure in 2024, along with other customer led engagement or oversight opportunities, including bespoke task and finish groups or single issue scrutiny sessions.

Getting Involved

Over the next few months we will begin organising and attending community events, on-line and in-person meetings and drop in sessions. We will promote these via the customer e-newsletter, on noticeboards and through our Housing Officers – please keep a look out for events happening near you, or contact me directly if you would like to make any event suggestions.

Listening to Learn

Last year we spoke to 297 customers to ask what they think of our services. If you took the time to respond to one of our quarterly surveys, thank you. These surveys provide us with really valuable information and it’s great to know that so many of our customers feel able to share their thoughts and suggestions, enabling us to make positive changes where appropriate.

These surveys also allow us to learn more about how the cost of living crisis is affecting our customers, with most people saying that they’ve seen significant increases in their utility, fuel and food bills.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind our customers of our Household Assistance Fund, which provides one-off financial sums (up to £250) to Elim customers who find themselves in financial difficulty with no disposable income or alternative means of short-term financial support.

Contact me

I am really excited to be out and about and I hope to meet a lot of Elim’s residents over the year ahead. If you would like to contact me directly, either to arrange a meeting or to talk to me about resident involvement, please contact me on G.Gigg@elimhousing.co.uk or call me on 01454 532383.