Water retailer Castle has set out plans to increase its meter reading through a contractor, which the company said will capitalise on excess capacity created by falling readings in the energy sector.
The company has tendered for a contract with an initial term of three years from January 2022 to appoint at least one meter reading contractor to play a primary role in reading its portfolio of 267,000 meters, which are scheduled to have around 700,000 reads annually.
John Reynolds chief executive at Castle Water said: “The increase in smart metering means there are fewer energy meter readings taken, so this is an important strategic change for meter reading generally.”
The company works with a number of different contractors that have additional capacity at the moment. “Some parts of the utility market are doing a lot less meter reading because of the smart meter rollout,” Reynolds explained. He added the size of the tender was therefore “really significant”.
The company, which also has an in-house reading team focused on harder to access meters, feels there is an opportunity to increase reads.
As well as having a large customer base in Scotland, the company acquired non-household customers from Thames, South East and Affinity, which Reynolds said brought together a broad range of meter reading across London and southern England.
Elsewhere, the business has expanded its billing options to reflect increasing customer preference for online account management during the pandemic.
Uptake of online access to account management increased 30-fold during the pandemic and 20 per cent of contacts now come via webchat rather than on the phone.
“More customers contacting us that way means we have significantly reduced costs so we can change billing options. We’ve designed a billing option specifically for customers who are engaging online that gives them the ability to manage accounts online much more actively in line with the billing periods they are looking for,” Reynolds said.
He explained this gave flexibility without increasing costs. “It reflects the investment we’ve put into the technology but it also reflects a change in customer attitudes, especially with more people forced to work from home.”