Housing Association Case Study
The Brief
The brief was to design and facilitate a highly impactful one-day event for a large housing association in the UK, that was aimed at engaging the hearts and minds of a wide cross-section of people. One of the key outcomes was to ensure that employees and suppliers to this housing association had a much stronger emotional engagement with the needs of the customer than they had previously and so would be able to adapt their behaviours and actions accordingly.
The Challenge
We therefore needed to represent the “voice of the customer”. However, since the customer in this case was often a disadvantaged member of society e.g. an asylum seeker, someone with substance abuse problems etc., it was not possible to literally bring the customer into the room. We therefore engaged the VerbatimPlayback™ team to represent the emotional and functional needs of these customers in a compelling and differentiated way.
The Solution
The VerbatimPlayback™ team created a set of “tableaux” featuring different “customers” portrayed by actors. These “tableaux” were interactive so participants of the event were able to go and visit them in settings that virtually exactly represented their physical environment – even down to the cigarette butts and empty beer cans.
They also worked with our specific agenda to provide a Virtual Verbatim experience for our participants. The participants were able to chat and interview the “customers” – asking them about their lives, their attitudes towards the organisation and the people that worked there etc. In order to be able to achieve this seamlessly and authentically, the team spent hours interviewing real customers and then painstakingly creating intricate back-stories so that they could represent these customers with credibility and respect as well as the powerful VerbatimPlayback™ presentations that initiated the discussion forum.
Result
It is difficult to portray on paper just how powerful these interactions were. Everyone instantly suspended any disbelief they had and related to the actors as if they were real customers. This intense understanding and engagement unlocked powerful individual and team learnings that meant in many cases, conversations were being had with individuals and teams that had never happened before. Previously insurmountable problems were tackled with gusto and ease and people pledged to significant and specific changes. The client had never in its history experienced this level of engagement and change. This could not have happened without the sheer talent, hard work and persistence of the VerbatimPlayback™ team.
“Our staff on the training course instantly suspended any disbelief they had and related to the actors as if they were real customers and members of staff.”
Regional Housing Association
VerbatimPlayback™ Housing Association Case Study
