Every year, Curo holds a residents’ event where colleagues get together with customers to listen, learn and share ideas.
On 10 September we held our traditional annual customer event, Curo’s BIG Get Together. Planning started back in April when more than 300 customers helped to come up with ideas for the event, including the venue, date, timings and what was on offer to customers.
We listened to this group of customers and came up with the concept for the BIG Get Together. It would be a more relaxed, sociable and family-friendly event, while also providing customers with the opportunity to talk to teams from across Curo, share their ideas with us and hold us to account.
As part of the presentations on the day, we held a one-minute silence in honour of Her Majesty The Queen. The event went ahead as planned after discussions with colleagues and customers.
Here’s Victor da Cunha, Curo’s Chief Exec, with his thoughts on the day:
Customers had tickets for either a morning session, running from 10am-12.30pm, or an afternoon session, from 1pm-3.30pm.
Curo colleagues from all our services, from Repairs to Independent Lives, had stalls at the events. Each Curo team gave customers a snapshot of the services they offer, providing handouts with useful tips, and customers could take time to talk to them and get answers to their questions.
Here are the thoughts of Liz Potter, outgoing Chair of the Board at Curo:
The turnout was impressive, with more than 400 Curo customers and stakeholders joining us at The Hub at Mulberry Park, Bath.
We've had positive customer feedback to the event so far.
Customers heard directly from Daisy Gaunt, Chair of the Customer Oversight Group, Liz Potter, Chair of the Board; Victor Da Cunha, Chief Executive; Julie Evans, Executive Director of Property; and Paul Harris, Executive Director of Customer Service; who talked about:
· The challenges facing Curo.
· What improvements have been made in the last 12 months.
· How teams are listening to and learning from our customers.
· How we’ve performed over the past year.
· What the future holds for Curo.
The panel then took part in a Q&A session where they answered questions from the audience.
You can watch videos of the Q&A session here:
The main topics from customers were:
- Governance at Curo
- Communicating with older customers
- Rent caps
- Gutter cleaning
- Service charges
- Cost of living
- Lawn and hedge maintenance
- Reducing the number of empty homes
- Reducing waste
- Lead piping in blocks
- Responding to customer survey feedback
- Rising costs for cleaning
- The difficulties of housing people with addictions
- Retro fitting, including solar panels and insulation
Curo’s teams were joined by colleagues from Avon and Somerset Police, BANES HomeSearch Team, BANES Libraries team and the Centre for Sustainable Energy, who gave information on their services. Overall, there were more than 20 stalls at the event.
Here are some photos of the stalls:
There were also lots of fun activities to enjoy. To encourage more families to join us, we introduced exciting activities such as donkey rides, face painting, bouncy castles and a petting zone with rabbits and goats. There were also lots of games on the service stalls, inspiring young people to find out more about what we do.
Here are some photos of the activities:
Curo’s BIG Get Together was our most ambitious and successful annual residents’ event to date and it’s the first time we’ve moved the event away from our head office at the Maltings, Bath. At the request of residents, we held the event at The Hub. Thank you to the colleagues at The Hub, who helped support and deliver this amazing event for our customers. Customers had the chance to enjoy all The Hub has to offer, including its event space and café, and were also treated to a tasty BBQ with free burgers, hotdogs and hot and cold drinks.
This event really wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of colleagues and the customers who were there on the day. Thank you to everyone who took part.
We’re also very grateful for all of the fantastic customer feedback we’ve received so far – here are just a few of your comments:
“You were all so welcoming and friendly. I left feeling good about what a great landlord you are. You’re so caring and, if we contact you, there’s always help available. The advice at the event was superb and I’m grateful to everyone who hosted it.”
“My neighbour, son and I went to the morning session. The food and drinks were great and my son loved the petting zoo, BBQ and ‘guess the tool’ game. It was good to meet the Customer Contact Team and give feedback on MyCuro. It was also useful to talk to your teams about solar panels, insulation, service charges and more.”
“A massive thank you to Curo for such an interesting and varied range of stalls, topics and people at the Big Get Together. It was thoroughly enjoyable and educational. And on top of all that, you even fed and watered us!”
“Thank you so much for Curo's Big Get Together. I loved being with the colleagues and customers. The event was well presented, professional and unforgettable. I feel part of such a great community.”
If you’d like to help shape our next annual event you can do this by sharing your thoughts HERE.