Blog7th January 2026
When we first began our mission to reimagine retrofit delivery, we knew that it would include a fundamental shift in how we think about and deliver resident engagement.
With decades of combined experience, the Transform-ER consortium recognised it’s one of the biggest contributors to success – or failure – of home energy upgrade programmes. And it’s currently not working.
The evidence is clear – landlords repeatedly report high dropout and refusal rates, complaints and tenants who find using new technologies challenging. Residents told us they feel uninvolved, confused and ultimately distrustful of the whole process. So where are we all going wrong?
What’s broken
Traditional retrofit engagement treats communication as a project management task: send letters, book surveys, complete installations, tick boxes.
This approach focuses on project delivery milestones, not people’s lived experience. One-way notices instead of dialogue. Technical completion instead of actual adoption. Staff-led processes instead of community ownership.
The result? Residents feel home energy upgrades are being done to – not with – them.
How we’re doing things differently
Over the last 22 months of working with landlords, suppliers, and residents, we’ve started developing and testing a different approach: starting by defining what success feels like for the resident based on their lived experience.
And then we align every stakeholder, process, and tool around that expectation. This helps creates a shared language and purpose across landlords, contractors, and delivery partners.
It’s vital to include suppliers in these conversations: outlining expectations upfront – like leaving a clean site every day – and helping foster mutual respect between installers and residents.
By treating everyone involved as a “user” of the process – residents, contractors, and landlords alike – our approach aims to build shared ownership, improve communication, and strengthen trust. This enables higher satisfaction, smoother delivery, and better long-term adoption of improvements.
Here’s what changes
Starting point
From: Programme targets and technical milestones define by client
To: Resident experience defines goals, expectations and success measures
Result: Shared purpose and alignment across all partners
Communication
From: One-way letters and notices
To: Multi-channel (face-to-face, digital hub, text, QR codes, events)
Result: Residents feel informed, supported, and given choice
Focus
From: Completing works to client KPIs
To: Experience before, during, and after works – with feedback loops
Result: Higher satisfaction, better long-term adoption
Resident input
From: Limited consultation
To: Residents set goals, provide feedback, participate in case studies
Result: Ownership, trust, empowerment
Skills
From: Technical delivery only
To: Technical and soft skills, empathy, storytelling
Result: Better relationships, fewer dropouts
Feedback
From: Adhoc or reactive
To: Qualitative first, quantitative second
Result: Data drive decisions, lessons built authentic improvement.
What this looks like in practice
Instead of installers focused purely on technical delivery, teams are trained in soft skills, empathy, and storytelling.
Instead of paper-based fragmented updates, residents access a centralised digital hub with transparent progress tracking.
Instead of staff-led rollout, community champions and resident liaison officers lead alongside delivery teams.
The outcomes
Engagement structured this way delivers measurable benefits for both residents and delivery teams: :
- Fewer dropouts and complaints
- Better use of installed systems (heating, ventilation, smart controls)
- Stronger landlord-resident relationships
- Evidence-based learning that improves each phase.
Our core principles
Our engagement strategy is guided by five interlinked principles:
- Resident-centred design: Engagement should be personalised, inclusive, and responsive. Each household has unique priorities, vulnerabilities, and communication preferences. Residents should feel that their voices are heard, their concerns addressed, and their home treated with respect throughout the programme.
- Clarity of objectives: Success metrics must be clearly defined across all stakeholders. For residents, this includes comfort, safety, reduced disruption, and trust in delivery. For landlords and delivery teams, objectives focus on programme efficiency, quality assurance, and compliance. Clear goals and transparent explanations of actions help residents understand the intent behind each practice, making them more willing to accept challenges as they occur and supporting overall programme resilience.
- Risk awareness: Early identification of potential risks, including household vulnerabilities, disruption to daily routines, safeguarding concerns, and property-specific challenges, enables proactive mitigation. Teams should be prepared to communicate risks thoughtfully, providing reassurance where possible without creating unnecessary alarm. This ensures resident safety, continuity of works, and builds trust.
- Transparency: Residents and stakeholders should be provided with clear information on roles, responsibilities, timelines, escalation pathways, and decision-making processes. Open communication about progress, challenges, and potential risks builds confidence, encourages accountability, and supports collaborative problem-solving throughout the programme.
- Continuous improvement: Engagement methods, communications, and tools should be reviewed iteratively. Lessons learned from early stages, pilot properties, or feedback loops must feed into subsequent phases to refine practice and improve both resident satisfaction and programme efficiency.
Our ambition is to enable a sector that can deliver 1m home energy upgrades annually by 2030 – and this will only happen if residents feel ownership. Not just of the new heating system, but of the process that installed it.
Transform-ER’s new retrofit delivery model embodies a resident-first approach that helps you ensure upgrades happen with people, not to them –offering choice, agency, and trust while creating homes that residents love.
As part of our offer for landlords, we can support you to deliver this new approach, using a toolkit to support delivery and standardise the process. Get in touch below!