Businesses reopening after lockdown have left water retailers with a colossal number of meters to read and customers to contact.
Since the government lifted restrictions in early July, Castle Water began asking customers to self-read to accurately reflect consumption after being closed.
“Reads are normally scheduled over a six-month period, but we want to double the number of reads and take them in a six-week period – that needs customers to help,” he said.
Contact levels over the past two months have ranged between two to ten times the normal level and the company has carried out a “record number” of meter reads – 40,000 out of the 130,000 meters registered to Castle. “To reset consumption properly we need two reads from each meter. For social distancing reasons we can’t get to all internal meters ourselves.”
During lockdown, Castle Water increased the self-serve capabilities on its website such as submitting meter reads. This was communicated to customers through mail, blogs and social media to highlight the importance. The company is donating one pound to Save the Children for every meter read to incentivise self submission.
Ofwat and MOSL made a series of changes to market codes to protect customers from being billed when businesses were forced to close during the pandemic.
These measures were wound down last month with retailers being required to remove temporary vacancy flags by the end of September and obtain meter reads that reflect actual consumption in the event that a customer has to close again.
During lockdown the quieter streets presented an opportunity to reach difficult to access external meters including London markets where parked vehicles ordinarily block access. Conversely billpayers with difficult to access, broken or inaccurate meters remain problematic for updating.
Reynolds added that the level of customer insolvencies is the highest Castle has ever seen, “which is as you’d expect in a monumental recession, but it’s too early to say what level and bad debt there will be”.