Member Spotlight

It’s our members that make Tpas such a great organisation to be part of and what better way to show this than with our member spotlight feature.

Each month we will invite one of our members to share their engagement achievements, tips and ambitions, allowing you to keep bang up-to-date with what others are up to across the sector.

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Member Spotlight  - Lovell    

We asked Caroline Lovelace, Customer Experience Manager at Lovell to share some of the work they are currently doing.

If you’d like to contact Caroline about any of the below, click here.

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Give us a little known fact about your organisation

In our Midlands refurbishment business (Lovell Renew Central), we have a combined tenure of 539 years with many colleagues having celebrated more than 10 years in the business. That’s a huge amount of experience and local knowledge that we bring to making homes safer, warmer, and healthier for residents.

Tell us about a time that engagement has made a difference to your services or communities?

There are so many examples of the impact of our engagement and how it has made a difference. We engage early with communities to understand local challenges and opportunities, so we can deliver real social value including employment, skills, and training. One of our success stories is the recruitment and retention of Kirsty, one of our Resident Liaison Officers (RLO)s. Kirsty was a resident of our client Sandwell MBC. We brought her into the team as a Trainee RLO and earlier this year she was promoted to RLO. The way our RLOs work with residents really makes a difference. Residents stay in their homes while we undertake work to help make their homes safer, warmer and more modern, so building trust is essential.

Our RLOs are with residents before work starts - explaining what to expect and helping them prepare. They really get to know the resident and their household so that we can do our best to work flexibly and minimise disruption for the resident. The RLOs stay in touch throughout the process, keeping the resident informed and supported every step of the way.

Our RLOs regularly go above and beyond to provide residents with the best experience as we refurbish their home. For example, one resident with limited mobility called one of our RLOs in distress late in the day. It was dark in her room due to scaffolding, her carers had left, and she couldn’t get out of bed to turn on the light.

The RLO tried to contact the scaffolders but couldn’t reach them. She called the resident’s daughter, who was unable to go down as she was in hospital. She provided the code to the RLO which enabled access to the home, and the RLO arranged for a nearby site team member to visit and turn the light on.

Later that evening, the resident’s granddaughter called to thank the RLO and the team. Afterwards the RLO liaised with the carers, family members and site team to make sure everyone knew the importance of leaving a light on for the resident in the future.

What are you currently working on when it comes to engagement?

My role, as Customer Experience Manager is focused on improving the resident experience and how we engage with residents, so I always have several improvement projects on the go! Current projects include:

• Working on how to get more feedback from residents to help drive improvement.
• Creating a video explaining why we need residents to remove items from rooms before work starts.
• Issuing an updated ‘What to expect’ guide for residents.

At a strategic level, we’re working with some of the largest social housing providers in the central region to improve resident engagement, applying the principles of behavioural psychology. We are working together to understand how our work makes people ‘feel’, and how we can deliver the best possible customer experience.

Why did you decide to join Tpas?

We are a partnerships-focused business and working with Tpas enables us to be part of a like-minded community focused on the importance of resident engagement. The access to content and training helps us and our teams to stay at the forefront of best practice. We’ve worked with Tpas for many years and have achieved the contractor accreditation at every renewal.

More recently, our leadership team made a strategic decision to approach planned works, retrofit, and work in high rise homes as a service, keeping residents firmly at the heart of what we do. This led to the creation of my role which is focused on transforming our customer experience performance. The new Tpas National Engagement Standards 2024 have helped to us deliver a clear resident engagement strategy.

What is your top engagement tip?

I have a few!

• If you’re engaging with honesty and authenticity, then you can’t go too far wrong. People see through fluff and appreciate an honest and authentic approach. Our Lovell values guide how we engage: we are easy to talk to, we show we care, and we do the right thing.
• Start with the right people – those who live these values every day.
• Embrace the professional advice provided by Tpas and embed this in your business.
• Give your team a clear vision, and mission, with definitive objectives. Trust and support your team and give them the resources to be succeed in engaging with residents.

What’s the one thing you are really proud of when it comes to engagement?

We were recently the first and only contractor under the new Tpas standards to achieve contractor accreditation in resident engagement.

I’m incredibly proud of the light that this has shone on the great work our RLOs do day in and day out for residents. There are so many stories of our team going above and beyond for residents and we were able to highlight these as part of the accreditation process. Their role is pivotal to building trust and successful resident engagement. This accreditation gave us the perfect opportunity to celebrate their brilliant work.

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Previous Member Spotlights

December 2025 - 

October - November 2025 - GCH

August 2025 - Pembroke Estate Management Board

July 2025 - Coastline Housing

June 2025 - Colchester Borough Homes

May 2025 - Manningham HA

April 2025 - Leeds Federated HA

March 2025 - North Star Housing Group

February 2025 - Wigan Council

January 2025 - Worthing Homes

December 2024 - Lumensol

October / November 2024 - Orbit

September 2024 - Gentoo

August 2024 - Watford Community Housing

July 2024 - BFT Mastclimbing

May / June 2024 - Stonewater

April 2024 - Hull City Council

March 2024 - Partners Foundation

February 2024 - Red Kite Community Housing

January 2024 - St Leger Homes of Doncaster

December 2023 - settle

November 2023 - Flagship Group

Sept / Oct 2023 - Hinckley and Bosworth Council

August 2023 - Tenants Hub CIC

June / July 2023 - Dovecotes TMO

May 2023 - Stockport Homes

April 2023 - TPTracker

March 2023 - Metropolitan Thames Valley

February 2023 - West Kent

January 2023 - Fairhive

December 2022 - Platform Housing Group

November 2022 - Integrated Solutions - City Plumbing

September / October 2022 - Homes Plus

August 2022 - Aspire

May 2022 - Arches

April 2022 -  Acis Group

March 2022 - wdh

February 2022 - Michael Dyson Associates Ltd

January 2022 - South Yorkshire HA

December 2021 - Gateshead Council

November 2021  - LiveWest

October 2021 - YMCA Thames Gateway

September 2021 - Bernicia

August 2021 - Anglian Building Products

July 2021 - Warrington HA

June 2021 - Futr

May 2021 - Vale of Aylesbury HT

April 2021 - Aaron Services

March 2021 - Soha

February 2021 - North West Leicestershire DC

January 2021 - Vinci Facllities

 

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I'd like to be in the spotlight

If you'd like to be featured in our Member Spotlight and highlight the work you are doing, please get in touch by emailing lisa.holt@tpas.org.uk.