Emily caught up with Rebecca Claydon, Customer Voice Lead at Freebridge Community Housing, to find out more about Rebecca’s background, top tips for championing customer voice and, what we really need to know, what weapon she’d use in a zombie apocalypse!
“Rebecca meets with either me or Beth (facilitator at Your Own Place) on a monthly basis to discuss plans for the regular Service Champions Forum. We meet on Teams this month, creative juices flowing to design the last Forum of the year. Luckily, Rebecca agrees to an interview and isn’t phased by our entryboard questions as she sees them regularly!
What’s your favourite pizza topping?
I always judge a pizzeria by its margarita pizza – if they cannot get that right, it’s game over!
If you were a plant, what plant would you be?
Yellow winter Jasmine as it smells great and brightens up any grey day!
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A remote island in the Bay of Bengal
Rebecca’s quick-fire need-to-knows:
Coffee/tea order: Iced espresso
Favourite biscuit: Dark chocolate digestive
Next, I wanted to find out a bit more about Rebecca’s background and what drew her to Customer Voice.
Tell us a bit about you and your journey to your current role.
I began my career in a London hotel marketing agency, travelling the country to help hoteliers create tailored rewards packages that boosted business during quiet periods. Loving the challenge of new industries, I took this experience into social housing, where, alongside a fantastic team and an inspiring CEO, we launched the first tenant reward scheme in the South of England.
From there, I explored fundraising, and then led a community festival in Kensington & Chelsea, balancing the needs of residents, sponsors, and trustees to deliver an event everyone loved. Next, I joined The View from The Shard team, working with another inspiring leadership group to create an unforgettable visitor experience. After a brief role in customer service at ExCeL London and managing a flagship Barnardo’s charity shop, the pandemic made me rethink.
I decided to return to Norfolk and to housing — the industry where I felt I made the biggest impact. I spotted an opportunity at Freebridge, applied, and here I am!
What interested you about Customer Voice?
I’ve always been passionate about listening to people’s experiences and finding ways to use their insights to shape better services. My career has taken me across diverse industries — from hotel marketing to social housing, community festivals, and customer service in renowned venues. In each role, I found that understanding people’s needs, concerns, and aspirations was the key to delivering real value. This passion naturally led me to Customer Voice, where the focus is on ensuring customers feel heard, valued, and empowered.
What particularly interests me about Customer Voice is the opportunity to connect the dots between customers’ experiences and organisational improvements. Whether it’s through initiatives like myFreebridge or collaborating with Service Champions, Customer Ambassadors or the Community Voices, I love facilitating conversations that uncover what really matters to people. Using these insights to drive positive change — improving services, enhancing team morale, and boosting customer satisfaction — is incredibly rewarding.
It’s crucial to ensure customers’ voices aren’t just heard, but genuinely influence decision-making and lead to meaningful, measurable improvements. Ultimately, championing Customer Voice is about building trust, transparency, and stronger relationships, which benefits both customers and the organisation.
Wow, it’s amazing to hear about your experience across different sectors and it’s so clear you have passion supporting people to share their voices and be heard, ensuring this is backed up with action. On this note – what are your aims for tenant engagement?
My aim for tenant engagement is to ensure that Customer Voice is fully integrated into Freebridge’s strategic decision-making, going beyond simply listening to customers to actively using their feedback to shape services and improve their homes. Having worked on impactful community projects like organising the vigil at Grenfell Tower, I understand how vital it is to make sure people feel heard and valued. This experience reinforced my belief that genuine engagement is about building trust and demonstrating that customers’ input leads to meaningful action.
At Freebridge, the Customer Influence Plan reflects this philosophy by ensuring engagement is woven into the fabric of all our services. I’m committed to empowering customers to influence decisions that affect their homes and communities, in line with our ambitious ‘Building Better Futures’ objectives. However, engagement isn’t just about collecting feedback—it’s about using that feedback to influence strategic decisions, ensuring that customers see their views reflected in tangible outcomes. This closing the loop shows customers that they are not only heard but respected and valued.
On a personal note, my aim is to make tenant engagement feel innovative, fun, and accessible. Engagement should come from a place of trust and transparency, where promises are never made lightly, and integrity is key. By fostering this approach, we can create a culture where customer engagement becomes an ongoing, positive force that enhances both the services we offer and the lives of our tenants. When customers are engaged and happy, Freebridge will naturally be a great place to work too.
Your Own Place’s values really connect with your approach to engagement – making it innovative and accessible, transparent and restorative. How does Your Own Place support you to work towards your aims with engagement?
Your Own Place plays a crucial role in helping Freebridge achieve its Customer Influence goals, particularly through its support in hosting focus groups and facilitating monthly meetings with Service Champions. Their expertise in independent facilitation ensures that the feedback gathered is unbiased, creating an environment where the operational side of Freebridge’s services can be thoroughly scrutinised. These meetings are a key part of our engagement strategy, where Service Champions can openly discuss issues and suggest improvements based on customer experiences. This is critical for ensuring that customer voices influence the decisions that shape the services we provide.
By working with Your Own Place, we also benefit from their proven skills in delivering actionable insights. Their structured approach to workshops and facilitation helps Freebridge not only hear customer feedback but also use it effectively to make meaningful changes. This aligns perfectly with our aim to close the loop and communicate back to customers that their views have been taken seriously, directly impacting improvements in their homes and local communities.
Their support enhances our ability to build trust and transparency, ensuring that customer
engagement at Freebridge isn’t just a process, but a partnership where customers can see the real impact of their involvement. This approach, underpinned by Your Own Place’s facilitation, helps us meet the vision of ensuring every customer feels valued, respected, and involved in shaping the services they receive.
Your Own Place is blushing – but we have to ask, why would you recommend Your Own Place?
I would recommend Your Own Place because they offer unbiased, expert facilitation in housing and tenancy-related matters. Their independent approach ensures that customer feedback is gathered in a transparent and unfiltered way, which is essential for initiatives like myFreebridge and the Service Champions programme.
By involving independent facilitators, you create a safe, neutral environment where customers feel comfortable sharing their honest opinions. This results in more authentic insights and helps identify real issues and opportunities for improvement. Your Own Place excels at listening to a wide range of voices, capturing different perspectives, and feeding these back in a way that drives meaningful change.
Their focus on skills development, empowerment, and preventing housing challenges aligns well with Freebridge’s goals of improving services and strengthening community relationships. Working with an organisation like Your Own Place demonstrates a clear commitment to transparency, trust, and genuine customer engagement.
Thank you for sharing your background, aims and experience of working with us. Your passion and expertise is so evident in your answers – What would your top tip be for championing customer/tenant voice?
My top tip for championing customer or tenant voice is to be creative, inclusive, and balanced:
– Think outside the box with your approach to engage people in meaningful ways.
– Listen widely to capture diverse perspectives and build a 360-degree understanding.
– Stay impartial and identify common themes (that golden thread!) to shape solutions that truly reflect the voices you’ve heard.
This way, you ensure every voice has the power to influence positive change!
You didn’t think we’d forgotten to address the zombie apocalypse, did you? Rebecca, we simply must know: What three items would you want in your backpack in a zombie apocalypse?
Sixpence (my cat), my slingshot and my favourite chocolate truffles
Priorities – chocolate is essential!
It was great to catch up with Rebecca and hear about her experience. If you’d like to connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn.“
Rebecca (top left) and five Service Champions at Freebridge’s last Service Champions’ Forum of the year.
If you’d like to find out more about our Tenant Engagement offer, click here or get in touch with Zoe at zoe@yourownplace.org.uk
