Derby-based housing provider Derwent Living won Excellence in Tenant Communication at this year’s national TPAS Awards for its collaborative approach to developing a new website.
The project is the culmination of over 12 months of engagement activity, which involved customers at every stage and included members of Derwent Living’s independent complaints panel, the resident scrutiny team, customer volunteers and customer forum attendees.
Derwent Living faced stiff competition at the ceremony in Manchester from eight other initiatives from across the UK. The awards ceremony is an annual event, which shines a spotlight on organisational excellence and aims to promote best practice across the housing sector. Now in its 12th year, 2019 was the first in a new and more nationally focussed format. Nominations came from a range of housing providers, councils, contractors and specialist support organisations.
Steve Atkin, Digital Media Manager at Derwent Living, said: “We’re absolutely delighted. It’s amazing to win such a prestigious award for the new website and be able to celebrate on the night with some of the customers who helped make it possible.”
“The consultation model we used, where existing engaged customer and staff groups feed into the development at every stage, gave us huge opportunities to refine features and test ideas. It also gives us advocates and critical friends in the future when planning improvements and additional features.
“The self-developed technology which powers the site helped us deliver the project quickly and at very low cost. Some of the specific system integration work has never been done before, so we’re proud that both the engagement and technical sides of the project could combine to deliver such a great product.”
The TPAS award is the second accolade the site has won since it launched last July, following a Compliance Plus rating from Customer Service Excellence in autumn 2018.
