‘It’s good to talk’: collaboration key as Clyde Valley Group invests in customers and community

The Clyde Valley Group has invested in two initiatives designed to help its customers and broader local communities: a customer contact centre and collaborative wellbeing hub.

Lee Valantine, Customer Services Manager at Clyde Valley Group, said: “The Customer Contact Centre is a dedicated team solely focused on answering queries and helping customers. Based at our Scott Street headquarters in Motherwell, all team members have customer service experience and are aware of every facet of our work across the group, so they can provide help and advice when it’s needed most.

"Being customer-focused is at the heart of what we do, and the last year has reaffirmed the need to really understand what the team can do to help. Being accessible is key.

“The concept of The Wellbeing Hub has been driven from projects we have been involved in the local community over several years. As an example, we’ve been working with Barnardos to deliver their Forever Homes project which provides young people who are care experienced with a safe and secure home. The beauty of this initiative is other providers step-in to deliver additional support needs whether that’s financial inclusion assistance or health and wellbeing assistance. Whatever can make the difference to that person’s life. This inclusive approach is so powerful. It brings local organisations together to work on a shared goal: focused on improving lives with good homes at the heart of them. We have bid for funding to deliver added-value services to expand this model out into communities where we have homes, for example, digital inclusion expertise and kit to allow customers to harness technology and the Scottish Fuel Foundation scheme to secure fuel vouchers. This funding allows us to formalise more partnerships for example we are working with Step Change to work together on debt advice services.

“We have gathered all this work under one umbrella, the Wellbeing Hub, with various strands covering wellbeing; financial inclusion; energy advice, employability and education. A whole team approach from Clyde Valley to work together. More and more agencies are addressing the challenges of post-Covid with joint working. Social housing providers are ideally-placed to coordinate these efforts and it’s so rewarding to see Clyde Valley leading from the front.”

The Contact Centre is open Monday to Thursday 09:00–17:00 and Friday 09:00–16:30.