Tom has been involved in helping to shape Orbits work for over six years.  He really led the way when it came to our customer inspection project, an online activity run via Your Voice digital engagement platform to give future customers the chance to virtually inspect our empty homes. Before the pandemic, Tom was a member of the inspection team, nine customers who regularly complete the inspections online and attend a review session at the end of each quarter.

When we moved the project online during lockdown, he helped and supported in the development of this new way of working, helping to shape the service we have provided to customers by testing this new way of delivering inspections online. He helped to shape what we post for the virtual inspectors to view, and developed the survey questions that follow each inspection.

Tom has embraced our new way of working by joining our sessions, at first by phone, but after some support he now joins via his laptop. He is now working closely with our property managers to help improve the communities in which our customers live.

This will help create a fresh new way of working at Orbit where our customers really feel heard and will help bring all our communities together to show the outcomes of the work we are undertaking and trying to achieve.

For more information about getting involved with Orbit, visit our Get Involved page.

Fiona has been an involved customer for over 5 years here at Orbit, and has attended all our webinar sessions throughout the pandemic - over 60 sessions!. Not only this but she makes sure that each one she attends, she gives valuable feedback which we can use to help increase Orbits support to our communities.

Fiona has really stepped forward and helped improve the service we provide to our engaged customers during this very difficult time, by requesting sessions where customers who were in lockdown were able to see and talk to fellow engaged customers at a time that suited them.

She has also joined the new virtual customer inspection project, an online activity that is run via our Your Voice digital engagement platform which gives customers the chance to virtually inspect our empty homes and to hold us to account against our re-let standards. This forms part of our regulatory approach and helps shape the service we provide to future customers.

The inspection team consists of nine customers who regularly complete the inspections online and attend a review session at the end of each quarter. They are now very involved in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) agenda and helped to develop our EDI customer survey by shaping the questions. This will give us more feedback from involved customers regarding EDI and boost the number of EDI forum members on our Your Voice platform.

This helps us show our customers are being heard, changes are being made because of customer feedback and that we need to work together to produce the best outcome for all.

For more information about getting involved with Orbit, visit our Get Involved page.

John has been a very actively involved customer for over 5 years. He is always the first to challenge and hold Orbit to account – which we really appreciate as it helps us improve our services and the lives for so many of our customers.  

The passion he has for improving services is always clear to see and he loves to champion the needs and thoughts of his fellow customers. Many of the other engaged customers rely on John to make sure that their feedback is heard and acted upon. 

John has long urged the need for a visible and effective policy on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion and has been a critical friend as the new, high profile initiative has been rolled out in the last year. 

John has championed Orbit’s adoption of the ‘Together with Tenants’ charter of the National Housing Federation which commits Orbit to building equal relationships, strengthening communication, facilitating Customers being able to hold their landlord to account and making sure quality of Homes and Services are of a high standard.  He was nominated for a ‘Tenant Participation Advisory Service” award last year due to his incredible contributions.  

His particular passion is Complaints and he has been brilliant in working with our complaints team on integrating the Housing Ombudsman’s new Complaint Handling Code into Orbit’s Policies and Standards. He was the lead Customer in the mandatory self-assessment following the introduction of the new Code. This culminated in presentations to both the Customer & Communities and Executive Boards about the work of engaged customers. He continues to stress the need for Orbit to learn from complaints and that they are used to drive improvements.