Our work with the water industry
Answering the Difficult questions
What’s it really like when you’re living in poverty and your water bill arrives?
How do water customers of different generations think and feel about investing to deal with infrastructure issues that may be 25+ years away?
What’s the best way to explain and communicate the concepts of groundwater abstraction or water reuse?
These are all questions that we have helped our clients with in our varied work with water industry clients over the past decade. We have helped to ensure that the customer voice is heard across a range of different areas including planning Price Reviews, Business Planning and Water Resources Management Plans. Our understanding of the regulatory requirements and expectations has led us to develop a range of tools and techniques to make sure that customers’ views are thoroughly considered and reflected in business decision making.
Below we outline a number of areas where we have brought our expertise to address the specific needs of water companies:
CUSTOMERS CloseNESS
Continuous customer engagement is key to being able to understand changing customer priorities and expectations and the drivers of such changes. Customer Advisory Panels (CAP) whereby a specially recruited cross-section of customers meets regularly and builds their understanding over time, giving their informed views, can be an invaluable process. The CAP is educated about key issues facing a water company and their views are sought about its future strategy. This model provides a mechanism for valuable two-way dialogue with an increasingly informed set of customers, to feed into key business plans and decisions on an ongoing basis.
There are a range of other ways in which water companies can encourage customer closeness beyond traditional research approaches. Being able to hear from customers directly can be key to getting buy-in from across an organisation. We have a range of tools that enable this, from bringing customers in to direct co-creation and collaboration exercises ; to community close-ups, whereby we create ethnographic films of customers’ daily lives that can be shared with staff to enhance their understanding.
engaging on long term AND complex issues
Many of the issues faced by water companies are complex, long term and require difficult trade-offs. We are experts in taking customers through a process of informed dialogue to enable them to come to informed and considered points of view on issues such as water resource management, resilience and leakage - through workshops, interviews and online forums. We apply a range of techniques to help customers consider future scenarios and identify priorities. Above all we bring the issues to life - for example our work for South Staffs Water included a ‘Top Trumps’ game to enable customers to choose between competing investment options.
DIVERSITY and inclusion
Water companies have a duty to ensure the voices of all their consumers, including those who are seldom heard or live in vulnerable circumstances, are heard. Developing a thorough understanding of these customers’ experiences will ensure that services can be shaped to meet their specific needs. We have engaged on water industry issues with hugely diverse audiences, including low income families; those living in water poverty; older people; people with mental health issues; people with English as a second language and those with sensory impairments. We know both how to identify and engage with such customers, as well as how to bring their voices to life. As an example we worked extensively with Anglian Water to ensure that their customers living in vulnerable circumstances were able to feed back on their business plan.
COMMUNICATIONS with cut through
From water bills themselves, to information about smart meters, to website content, it’s vital that water companies’ messages for customers is clear, relevant and engaging. We’ve helped our clients, including Thames Water, Anglian Water and South Staffs Water, to ensure that their communications hit the spot, by testing them directly with customers.
CONDUCTING CONSULTATIONS
As close associates of The Consultation Institute, we understand the important differences between research, engagement and formal consultation. Water companies are obliged to undertake formal consultation processes on some aspects of their work. The process requires careful handling to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are included and have the opportunity to give intelligent consideration to the options on the table. We are well versed at encouraging stakeholders and customers to provide their views via a range of channels, including facilitated meetings and workshops, written survey responses (paper and online) and outreach events. We are Thames Water’s sole consultation and engagement supplier and have been since July 2016.
Our clients include:
