From disappointment to delight: teamwork delivers kitchen upgrade for Elizabeth

There are few greater delights than choosing a new kitchen – from the colour, down to the finish, and even the layout.

That’s exactly the situation Elizabeth Jowsey, a retired customer from Churchdown, Gloucestershire, was enjoying when our contractor partners came out to visit her in March 2022. That visit had happened amid 12 months of delays thanks to the pandemic and having a brand new kitchen was due to be especially sweet for the 70-year-old after battling and beating a couple of cancer diagnosis in recent years.

Work was due to begin towards the end of April but unfortunately, due to a breakdown in communication, a decision had been taken without her knowledge to move the job to our in-house kitchen and bathroom specialists. That mix up led to a missed appointment and initial frustration as Elizabeth was forced to chase it up with her neighbourhood coach.

However, what started with some disappointing delays was transformed into a positive experience when neighbourhood coach Lisa Douse took ownership of the situation and alongside our kitchens and bathrooms team got to the bottom of the mix up.

“Unfortunately, there was a breakdown in communication and they failed to turn up,” Elizabeth explained.

“After contacting Lisa she discovered that Bromford had asked the contractor to return the paperwork as they were now going to do the job in-house as they had other kitchens to fit near me. It was a pity that no-one thought that I might like to know about the change.

“But Lisa immediately contacted Sasha from the kitchens and bathrooms team and she was excellent and contacted me straight away and apologised for the mix up. She then came to see me with a guy called Sean and assured me that the team would do everything that had been agreed with the contractor and would start work on 6 June.”

Elizabeth, who worked in the repairs team at Severn Vale Housing Association until retiring in 2007, was a little apprehensive when the big day finally arrived but she needn’t have worried. Multiskilled engineer Dean Makey was assigned the two week job and took it in his stride, as well as involving our customer in the decision-making processes throughout.

Elizabeth went on: “I am 70 years old and can honestly say that in all those years I have never met a more hardworking, conscientious, professional, trustworthy, helpful, neat, friendly, and kind person. Dean took great pride in his work and attention to detail was very important to him.”

Elizabeth now has a stylish new kitchen with a better layout and increased cupboard and drawer space.

“It was a pleasure having him in my home and it was like having my son back for a fortnight although Dean definitely did more work – I absolutely love my new kitchen,” she added.

Dean added: “I like to involve customers as much as possible and although we might not be able to fulfil everything, I always like to take their wishes into account and strike up a good rapport as Elizabeth and I did. Being a multi-trade specialist means you don’t have lots of different tradespeople inside a customer’s home which generally makes for a more pleasant and safer experience and I’m really glad Elizabeth is happy with her new kitchen – it has definitely been a lesson in the value of good communication!”

We invested £5m in major repair and refurbishment programmes in the past 12 months which included the installation of 477 new bathrooms, 898 new kitchens, 721 new windows, and 1,175