My name is Chloe, and I am a Dispute Resolution Advisor in the Dispute Support Team. I have been working at The Housing Ombudsman Service since January 2021. My day usually consists of working through tasks allocated to my cases and taking inbound calls providing advice on support to residents on making a complaint and escalating it via their landlord’s complaint procedure. I find it exciting to be part of an organisation that is aiming to improve the quality of social housing and to work with landlords providing advice on how they can use complaints as learning and continuous improvement.  

My role involves a lot of problem solving, using my initiative and customer service experience in working with residents to recognise the complaint issue being raised and identifying the next steps for a complaint, whether that be communicating with a landlord directly or advising a resident of our role and what they can expect from our Service and what they should do next to attempt to resolve the issues. 

I started my role during lockdown which meant I did all my training online. The training is thorough and informative and gives you a good understanding of the role. I currently work most of my time at home.  Despite being in a virtual world I have developed close working relationships with my colleagues and management and feel that I am able to easily contact and liaise with other teams. I have recently started going into the office and I am really hoping that other colleagues will take a hybrid approach to their work pattern now that we seem to be returning to normal life. The office also has a great gym and is a great location in Canary Wharf!  

I have experience in housing and have had several roles within the sector in various locations. I like to think that I am approachable and use my experience working with residents, local authorities, and social housing landlords to provide understanding to a resident’s situation and provide suitable advice to our service users to attempt to resolve complaints within the dispute support stage of the service.  

I have been supported by my colleagues and management since I started at the organisation and regularly reach out to my team for a random chat over a coffee, much like we would in person. The organisation is very focused on wellbeing and offers great benefits such as training packages, flexible working patterns and generous holiday to get that much needed R&R from a challenging but rewarding role!