Bath-based housing organisation Curo has been shortlisted alongside major national brands including Marks & Spencer, Homebase and BskyB in the finals of the UK Customer Satisfaction Awards.
Curo has been shortlisted in the Best Customer Satisfaction Strategy category of the national awards staged by the Institute of Customer Service, the UK’s professional body for customer service.
The awards recognise organisations and individuals that have implemented successful customer service strategies. They are judged by industry experts, business leaders and academics. 
Curo executive director for customer service Louise Swain, pictured, said: “At Curo we wanted to transform the experience our customers have whenever they contact us. We knew that couldn’t happen without a clear plan in place, so we developed a customer experience strategy that learned from the very best global brands and made customer service our number one priority.
“We’re thrilled to have had our approach recognised nationally and to be ranked alongside household names who have invested millions in customer service.
“Listening is central to our strategy and we’re continuing to learn from our customers’ feedback so we can consistently do the right things, right first time when we say we will.”
Key elements of Curo’s customer experience strategy are:
- Understanding customers: their needs, preferences and experiences of dealing with Curo. Curo now carries out regular customer surveys to measure customer loyalty and understand what lies behind good and bad experiences. Curo measures the ‘net promoter score’ employed by leading customer service brands to benchmark customer loyalty and satisfaction.
- Making it easy for customers to get in touch in the ways they choose – whether in person, by letter, online, by phone or even through social media – and using measures like ‘customer effort’ to track this and target improvements.
- Providing consistency so every customer’s experience is of the same, high standard.
- Investing in staff training: every Curo employee, whatever their job, takes part in a comprehensive customer service training programme.
Curo provides around 12,000 affordable homes and high-quality support services to people across the West of England. As well as its Bath city centre headquarters it has offices in Keynsham, Midsomer Norton and Bristol.
The winners of the UK Customer Satisfaction Awards will be announced at a ceremony in London on March 3.
