Magenta Living is committed to supporting our customers through the cost of living crisis.
We initially ran a consultation project on our customer engagement platform, Magenta Connect, to gain a better insight into our customer’s needs and what support they felt they needed the most at this time.
Using our cost of living strategy, the project data, customer feedback and looking at areas where we didn’t have a community presence, we identified four areas where we would start with our cost of living roadshows.
Rachel Bennett, Magenta Living’s Housing Services Director said, ‘Our cost of living strategy has been designed to bring all the support we’re offering our customers into one place and ensure we’re supporting the customers who need it the most. We have six key objectives that we want to deliver as part of the strategy, and the objectives focus on early identification of vulnerability and risks, proactively working in our communities and with our partners to offer support, keeping customers in their homes and supporting general wellbeing.
I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who made these roadshows possible. This has been one of the most successful collaborations we’ve ever had, with the highest number of volunteers coming forward to help us deliver the roadshows in our communities. We will be getting back on the road in the new year to deliver further roadshows.’
In preparation for the roadshows, we sent postcards to the four areas and secured volunteers from Magenta Living and our partners, which included Wirral Foodbank, Energy Project Plus, Connect us, Wirral Citizens Advice Bureau, and the Hygiene Bank. The roadshows ran throughout October and November, with volunteers taking part in a door knocking exercise and depending on their answer scores, customers were referred to the trailer where we had specialists on hand to provide instant support to customers, and we had supplies of food, hygiene products, baby basics and energy saving lightbulbs.
Following on from the cost of living roadshows, we analysed the data from the questionnaire and will use the insights to develop our future roadshows. The data shows that during the roadshows, we contacted 886 customers and provided each customer with a fact sheet full of important information and support links.
We made 69 referrals to Energy Project Plus for emergency food vouchers and ongoing support, 60 referrals to Wirral Foodbank and 38 referrals to our Welfare Benefits Team, which allows us to support our customers going forward, and prevent them from getting into debt.
We will continue to support our customers during this challenging time, updating our website with the most up to date information and links, which can be found here.
