Looking back at the March 2022 customer event
This article was written by Dasos Christou, executive director - customer relations.
It was fantastic to see so many of our customers face to face and engaging with us after our last in-person customer event around two years ago.
We had a great turnout, with 62 customers attending the event to listen to our updates, have their voices heard, and enjoy the buffet.
Our annual customer perception survey
We kicked off by sharing the results of our annual perception survey. We carry out this survey to track customer experience over time by measuring overall satisfaction, quality of homes, trust and more.
This year, the survey highlighted that overall satisfaction had dropped in line with the rest of the housing sector. Delays in repairs and poor communication were the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction.
We are very disappointed with this result and will now create an action plan for how we will improve in these areas. This will be agreed upon with the customer partnership board and the Silva board in April. It will then be published online and in our customer annual report in July 2022, in time to be shared at the next customer event.
The Question and answer (Q&A) session
Next up was the Q&A session with the executive board, where the team and I answered questions submitted by customers before the event.
The questions covered topics ranging from how Silva was affected by the pandemic and how we are tackling climate change, to our repairs programme and digital services.
We then took a refreshment break to enjoy a cup of tea or a coffee and chat with our customers face to face. I found it incredibly useful to have conversations with some customers and hear their individual concerns, compliments, ideas and feedback.
Fire safety at home
Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service got us back underway with a useful and, in some cases, sobering presentation about reducing the risk of fire in your home. I think many people, myself included, will think twice about charging their phone next to their bed at night or overloading extension leads.
They also promoted their brilliant ‘safe and well visit’ service, where you can arrange for them to attend your home and highlight any fire risks for free.
An update from the Customer Partnership Board (CPB)
To close the talks, we heard from Naheed Ejaz, chair of the CPB, who ran through the role of the CPB and how it works with the Silva board and executive board to influence our services.
Opening to the floor
We then began group discussions at each table, asking the question: ‘Do you feel there is anything we could do differently to involve customers in the scrutiny of our performance and to influence the decisions we make?’
Silva colleagues sat at each table with customers to record their insights which we will use moving forward.
We then closed for the evening by drawing the raffle tickets, in which five customers won prizes ranging from a Lenovo tablet (sponsored by W Stirland) to a Twining’s tea hamper!
In case you missed our customer event
If you missed our customer event, but would still like to see what happened, you can watch recordings of the evening here.
In the meantime, here are some of the best photos we captured at the event for you to enjoy.
The next event in our Customer Programme
We are now busy planning our next customer event which will be held on 6 July 2022. We will contact you in June to confirm the details of the next customer event and the format that we will be following.