Bristol Water - Developing a customer engagement strategy
Monday 02 July 2018
Supporting Bristol Water to develop and deliver an effective and innovative strategy for customer engagement.
Last week I spoke at the MRS Utilities Research Conference, alongside Bristol Water’s Customer Research and Engagement Lead, Danielle Emerson.
We were sharing our experience of working together to transform the way in which Bristol Water talk to their customers. There were other similar presentations from across the water industry, exploring topics such as working with online communities, gamifying, willingness to pay, and supporting vulnerable customers.
It is apparent that many water companies have indeed been aiming for the step-change in their approach to customer engagement that Ofwat has called for, and that there has been much innovation around methodologies for engagement, and ambition around numbers of customers engaged. However, there was little discussion around the best methods to evaluate the outcomes and impact of this engagement – beyond providing business plan-related evidence for Ofwat’s PR19 requirements.
Reflecting on this, I sat down with Traverse’s evaluation brain Tim Bidey to discuss how robust evaluation strategies could strengthen ongoing efforts across the utilities sector to solidify customer engagement within business as usual activities. We recommend co-creating an evaluation strategy with your customers, and your internal and external stakeholders, in order to better understand what difference your engagement makes to them. There are a range of different approaches that you might want to take, but we’ve pulled out a few easy, low-cost starting points:
Evaluating your work as you go, according to a pre-agreed framework, ensures that your engagement efforts are not only continually improving, but also helps bring your customers and stakeholders on the journey with you, as they have a greater understanding of what you are trying to achieve.
At Traverse, as we offer services in research, engagement, and evaluation that can help you take the next step and solidify customer engagement within business as usual activities. We have a long track records of working with clients who are experienced in or new to evaluation, and we tailor our approaches accordingly. We find that well-developed evaluation results in more efficient and effective ways of working and promotes a culture of learning and improvement.
For more information about how we could support your evaluation needs, please contact Tim at tim.bidey@traverse.ltd