Greater innovation and collaboration to help vulnerable customers has brought a shared data platform closer to reality.
A joined project from water, electricity and gas companies has highlighted the benefits of collaboration for customers who are living in vulnerable circumstances.
Utility companies have reported a rise in customers signing up for the Priority Services Register (PSR) since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic but recognise there is more work to be done to raise awareness of the service.
Anglian and South East Water are two members of the Utility Networks Partnership who both saw an uptick in the number of customers identifying as vulnerable since March.
Sam Ross, head of customer strategy at Anglian, said the impact of lockdown has left elderly people in particular significantly more isolated and for those who are shielding may be at more risk if they had to leave their homes to fetch water so Ross said it is now paramount to increase awareness of the service available.
“The key message at the moment is around identifying people who are shielding and at increased risk. We are seeing more collaboration than before and more innovation at the moment to respond.”
She said the sheer volume of customers who need support either as vulnerable people or requiring financial assistance has been a challenge as people who previously would not have considered themselves vulnerable have joined the register because of their circumstances during the pandemic.
“We have been able to be much more flexible and in terms of responding to an emergency we have demonstrated we can adapt quickly.”
She said the response to the pandemic includes raising awareness with people who may have fluctuating vulnerability needs, particularly due to the pandemic.
Each water company has a common performance commitment included in their business plan for 2020-25 to achieve a minimum of 7 per cent of households signed up to the PSR by the end of the AMP. Anglian has taken this further with a target of 12.8 per cent.
The company has begun training customer-facing staff to have greater awareness of the register and its benefits as well as to try to identify people who would gain from it and offer to sign them up.
Like Anglian South East Water has set itself a stretching target to sign up 12 per cent of bill payers by 2025.
Andy Clowes, head of customer insight and strategy at South East said that during coronavirus, South East saw a radical increase in people signing up for priority services including those who were shielding or temporarily vulnerable. This was in part due to ramped up promotion of the register including more than 800,000 emails to reassure customers and inform them of the register.
Clowes said: “At the moment there’s a bit of a shift about people’s thinking about the importance of protecting yourself and household, so we think that awareness piece was coupled with a greater self-awareness of fragility.”
To further promote the PSR in a unified way, the Utility Networks Partnership produced a video on the benefits of the service.
Clowes said the challenge was to create something accessible to all and relatable without being condescending to any groups of people.
“The idea was to create a single message that could be used by different stakeholders across the industry,” he said. “The Utility Networks Partnership brings together water, gas and energy providers to be more joined up in our approach.”
“We wanted to show we are working together and working towards a single sign-up for PSR,” he said of the collaborative work across the utilities,” Clowes said. “We all want to do things in the best way possible for customers and the collaboration brings efficiencies through working together.”
Ross is also optimistic that a common register is closer to becoming reality and starting to pick up momentum following huge amounts of work to progress it.
“Wider data sharing would improve the journey for customers. Someone in need of support having to register with multiple companies is less than ideal.”
The video by Utility Networks Partnership – Affinity Water, Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water, Essex and Suffolk Water, SES Water, SGN, South East Water, Southern Water, Thames Water, UK Power Networks, Cadent Gas and Cambridge Water – can be seen here.