Calls to customer services teams at the UK’s 25 water companies have surged following the announcement that seven water companies in southern and eastern England will be implementing bans from 5 April, with further regions on high alert.
The impact on customer service teams has been significant. The average hosepipe-related enquiry is taking 10 minutes to resolve, at a cost of £12 per customer, on top of the expected daily call levels.
However, this cost and administrative pressure is not necessary. Customer analysis has identified a common question: “What impact will the hosepipe ban have on me?”
Having established the key customer concern, it would be far more effective, both in terms of cost and administration, for the water companies to take a proactive approach to customer management. With the technology now available there is no excuse for customers to feel ill-informed and therefore for huge spikes in call numbers in the event of a planned service change, such as the hosepipe ban.
Robert Gillam
“It is very easy and cost effective to proactively communicate with high volumes of customers, quickly and accurately via letter, email, SMS and social media,” explained Rob Gillam, consultant to the utilities sector, CDC Respond.
“Service providers must use the intelligence provided by customers to pre-empt issues and communicate. Not only will this limit the number of repeat enquiries, the more informed a customer is, the less likely they are to escalate an enquiry to a complaint. This not only reduces the administrative burden, it ensures that the customer management process remains compliant with the requirements of the regulator,” continued Rob Gillam.
From a regulatory perspective it is vital that customers are happy with the communications. OFWAT, the water regulator, is increasingly taking action against water companies that provide poor customer service and inadequate complaints management processes.
Whilst the water ban is an environmental consequence, how the provider manages the restrictions will affect compliance and could open the company up to a considerable fine, in addition to the increased administrative costs.
Author: Jo Robinson
Published On: 4th Apr 2012 - Last modified: 22nd Mar 2017
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You are quite correct Robert and already, our Water company clients have received real-time feedback vai our telephone surveys, regarding the water ban, upon which they are acting immediately.
Customer feedback already shows there is still some public confusion about which areas are covered and which not and almost all of our “Water” clients have added IVR messages to their front-end menus.