Meet the Team - Communications and Customer Engagement Lead Casey Willis

Meet Casey Willis, our Communications and Customer Engagement Lead.

For Communications and Customer Engagement Lead Casey Willis, listening to customers is much more than part of her job. It is something she has understood the importance of for most of her life.

Casey Willis has worked in supported housing for 10 years, but her connection to the people who rely on it goes back much further.

Growing up with an older brother with additional needs meant Casey saw first-hand some of the challenges faced by individuals and their families. Alongside her mum, she also helped to run Revo Fun Nights in Billingham for more than a decade, providing a social club for adults with learning and physical disabilities. She later spent several years working as a support worker alongside her role in housing.

Those experiences have shaped the way Casey approaches her role at Portus Supported Housing today.

“I’ve seen the battles families can face and how difficult it can be when you constantly have to push for things,” she says.

“For me, I want the housing side of someone’s life not to be another fight.”

Casey understands the level of trust involved when someone moves into supported living. Families are relying on a number of different people and organisations to make sure their relative is safe, well supported and living in a home that meets their needs.

“You want to know that the property is safe, secure and maintained properly and that the person is getting the right support,” she says. “It can be a huge concern for families.”

Away from work, Casey is a lifelong Middlesbrough fan and enjoys going to matches with her brother. Football is another important part of their time together, alongside regular days out, and reflects just how central family is to Casey’s life.

From repairs to customer engagement

Casey joined Bespoke Supportive Tenancies (BeST) in 2016 as a Maintenance Coordinator, taking repair calls, logging work and organising contractors.

Her career subsequently moved through communications and tenant engagement roles before she became Customer Engagement Officer following the creation of Portus Supported Housing.

Over those 10 years she has seen considerable change, but one thing has become increasingly important to her: making sure customers genuinely influence the homes and services they receive.

There is no such thing as a typical day.

Most mornings begin with responding to customers, support providers and other partners, following up feedback or speaking to colleagues about particular issues. On other days Casey could be travelling anywhere across England and Wales to visit customers.

Getting out to schemes is the part of the job she enjoys most.

“I love getting out and actually meeting people,” she says. “You get to know them, what they like, what they don’t like and what they do during the day.

“People respond really well when you take that time. They want to tell you who they are and what matters to them.”

Finding the right way to listen

Casey is clear that meaningful engagement cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach.

A formal customer voice meeting might work for some people. For others, an arts and crafts session, a seasonal event or simply sitting down with a cup of tea and some cake can make conversation much easier.

“I always start by asking what the customers would like,” she says.

“If you make things a little more informal, people often open up more. They’ll talk about what they like about their home, what they don’t like and what we could do better.”

That is particularly important because some customers may not always find it easy to express their views.

They may need support to communicate, lack confidence or have had previous experiences where they felt they were not listened to.

“People can’t always voice their concerns easily,” Casey says. “They might need support to do that or they might have felt dismissed or not valued in the past.

“It’s about listening properly and understanding what somebody needs and what they want.”

For Casey, good listening also means being prepared to ask more questions.

Something that might appear relatively minor to somebody else can have a significant impact on a person with additional needs or an established routine.

“If somebody reports a repair, for example, you shouldn’t just think about what priority it sits under,” she says.

“Ask how it is affecting the person living there. How are they dealing with it? How are they feeling about it?

“It’s about empathy and trying to understand the experience from their perspective. I think care comes into it a lot as well.”

Rebuilding trust

That willingness to listen becomes especially important when something has gone wrong.

Casey has previously used complaints as an opportunity to rebuild relationships with customers.

“A complaint usually means there has been some kind of breakdown in the relationship,” she says. “It might be a small issue or a much bigger one, but trust has been affected somewhere.

“When somebody is really frustrated, I’ll let them talk. I’ll listen and try to understand what has happened. Then you can start rebuilding that relationship.”

It is an approach Casey would like to see embedded across the whole organisation, so customers receive that same willingness to listen from their first point of contact onwards.

Seeing confidence grow

Some of Casey’s greatest job satisfaction comes from seeing customers become more confident about expressing their views.

She has worked with people who initially said very little during meetings, but gradually became increasingly comfortable speaking up, giving feedback and getting involved.

One customer Casey worked with regularly over two years initially lacked confidence in meetings but went on to become an active participant before eventually moving from supported living into a general needs home.

“She was quite shy at first and you could tell she was a bit afraid to speak up,” Casey says. “Then, after a while, you couldn’t get her to stop talking!

“Seeing somebody develop that confidence and seeing changes being made that benefit customers is what gives me satisfaction.”

For Casey, however, engagement cannot stop at asking people what they think.

“We need to actually do something with what people tell us,” she says.

Not every suggestion can be delivered immediately and some changes will need to be considered alongside budgets and future plans. But customers should be able to see that their feedback has been heard and considered.

‘It’s their home’

When Casey is asked to sum up what her role means to her, she comes back to one simple idea: giving customers a meaningful voice.

That means influencing the services they receive, how properties are maintained and the decisions which affect their day-to-day lives.

“It’s about making sure customers have meaningful opportunities to influence decision-making and have a voice in their own home,” she says.

And the word ‘home’ matters.

Supported housing may involve landlords, care providers, commissioners and other professionals, but to the person living there, it is their home.

“I want people to feel that it is their home and that they have a say in how it looks and how it is managed,” Casey says.

“Rather than us saying, ‘we’re going to decorate your house’, I want us to be asking them what they would like.

“It’s about involving people in the management of their own home wherever possible.”

After 10 years in supported housing, that remains what drives Casey: making sure people are not simply given an opportunity to speak, but that they are listened to and their voice helps shape what happens next.