Case study - lovell

Refreshing Culture to Shift from Customer Service to Customer Experience, Enabling Innovation & Growth

Lovell is a leading partnership housing business providing innovative residential construction and regeneration developments across England, Scotland, and Wales. 

97%

would recommend the workshops to their colleagues

Great

Trustpilot rating improved from ‘bad’ to ‘great’ over an 18-month period

3.58

Lovell Incident Frequency Rate reduced from over 3.58 to 3 over 12-month period.

Winner

of Best Brand & Values Initiative at Business Culture Awards 2023

The challenge

Built on a pioneering spirit, they had embarked on an exciting journey of transformation and growth, to build an empathetic, customer centric and high performance culture. The ultimate aim was to deliver an outstanding experience for customers, their people, partners, communities, and other stakeholders, whilst also fuelling business results and sustain their achievement of 5 Star Builder status.

They wanted to:

MAB was already driving a tech-led change programme to simplify the customer and adviser journey. But the leadership team knew that without a unifying culture, the transformation risked stalling.

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The solution

We stress-tested and refined MAB’s Mission, Vision and Values, then co-created a cultural blueprint called “MABology”. This gave everyone a shared narrative and clear set of behaviours – aligned to regulatory and ESG expectations – that could be lived consistently across the organisation.

We launched this new cultural identity through an online event, engagement programmes (Friday Joy, MABfest, MABplause), and series of team workshops with facilitation guides

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The process

We applied our award-winning 3-stage culture change methodology as a foundation. We tailored the methodology to the client’s needs throughout the process to ensure we could deliver a unique future-proof culture for Lovell:

Insight

Cultural Audit to understand & assess the existing culture, challenges & opportunities

  • Reviewed customer journeys, Voice of customer insights, customer satisfaction, brand research and identifying the opportunities for improving customer experience.
  • Reviewed a range of ‘people’ data – employee engagement surveys, HR data, IIP assessments and diversity & inclusion insights.
  • Interviews and focus groups to gather qualitative insight from a cross section of leaders, managers, and colleagues.

Design

Designing the future culture

  • Facilitated sessions with a mix of colleagues, on different sites, across different regions.
  • Explored ideas with customers for improving their ‘Service First’ approach.
  • Used these learnings to define ‘The Lovell Way’ – 3 culture principles which would guide everyday actions, behaviours, decisions, and ways of working.
  • Created new internal branding to bring ‘The Lovell Way’ (TLW) to life – with comprehensive iconography and artwork.
  • Developed a 12-month, phased internal communications/engagement plan to launch nationwide – using a blend of channels, styles, and messaging.
  • TLW was embedded into internal campaigns including Suicide Prevention Week, Menopause Awareness Month, National Walking Month, and they now have a 12-month calendar of TLW-underpinned campaigns.

Embed

To ensure The Lovell Way became an every day, lived reality

  • TLW is being embedded into the end-to-end employee experience on a phased basis, starting with recruitment and new joiners who experience the same immersion as part of their induction.
  • A new quarterly employee survey, measuring both engagement and culture, has been Implemented.
  • Using TLW to establish aligned and collaborative working relationships with key partners e.g. housing associations.

The result

The nationwide events received excellent feedback

  • 97% would recommend the workshops to their colleagues.
  • 97% rated the workshop as ‘good’ or ‘excellent.’
  • 99% ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that the facilitator was engaging and knowledgeable.
  • Trustpilot rating improved from ‘bad’ to ‘Great’ over an 18-month period, and Lovell expect to see improvements in customer satisfaction results/NPS in the National New Homes Survey.
  • The Lovell Incident Frequency Rate (adverse health, safety, and environment events per 100 employees) reduced over from 3.58 to 3 over a 12 month period. The Accident Frequency Rate (RIDDOR) reduced from 0.07 to 0.04 over the same period.

 

Lovell also won Best Brand and Values Initiative at the Business Culture Awards 2023 for the work done with Culture Consultancy.

We wanted to create a culture that people want to be part of – where everyone enjoys playing their part and understands how they can contribute towards their own, and the company’s, continued success. The Lovell Way brilliantly encapsulates this, helping inform the choices people make around not only what they do, but importantly how they do it – it really is guiding people’s attitude and behaviour, with others in mind. It’s providing greater consistency and shared learning in the way we do business and will help us to continuously improve.

Steve Coleby

Managing Director, Lovell Homes

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