Business water customers look at service as much as cost

Anglian Water has found that winning business customers is not a matter of shaving a few per cent of the tariff, it’s about offering services that can save customers real money, says Bob Wilson.

Back in 1997, Anglian Water really took the lead in creating a competitive market – buying Hartlepool Water and attempting to offer customers a choice to the existing monopoly suppliers through the mechanisms available at the time. Since then, under a number of guises, we have tried and tested different means of competing.

We were the first to obtain a licence to challenge the incumbent when the market opened in Scotland in 2008, gaining invaluable experience of transferring customers and refining our service offering. The evidence suggests all this preparation has paid off, because no customers in Scotland have switched away from us despite the recent flurry of new entrants.

Creating Anglian Water Business as our dedicated retail arm four years ago was another major step forward. Knowing that a key requirement of businesses with a national presence is the ability to receive a single consolidated bill for all their sites, we implemented a powerful billing system, RapidXtra, tailored to the complexities of the water industry so we could do exactly that.

We also adopted a customer relationship management system to drive efficiencies and improve customer service. Both systems are fully scalable and have allowed us to separate our processes from the wholesaler’s well ahead of market opening.

Putting the systems in place to operate effectively in different markets early on means we have been able to focus on new service offerings such as Active Water Management.

Customers often do not have the time to keep a close eye on their water consumption, or the expertise to interpret the available data, particularly if they have complex processes or multiple water suppliers. Under Active Water Management, we monitor customers’ water use so we can quickly identify leaks or other anomalies if we see unusual consumption patterns.

Our focus when approaching potential new customers is on helping them achieve a 20 per cent reduction in water use, which we believe is more sustainable and better in the long term than offering a 2 per cent tariff reduction. This is why we are continuing to develop new ways to help customers become more efficient. Put simply, savings achieved in this way will keep paying back year on year. Furthermore, it has a knock-on effect in terms of energy costs and carbon emissions, helping to future-proof businesses in tough times.

This link between water, energy and carbon is often overlooked. But the fact is, when you heat water, the carbon impact of using it can multiply up to 30 times. The financial impact multiplies too – energy bills are a major expense for most organisations.

For many businesses the cost of water has not been great enough to prioritise or to dedicate resources to make efficiency savings. We are changing that, and we want to continue leading the way in changing
how businesses view water. This means building understanding of the water-energy-carbon link.

Partnering with other organisations has allowed us to introduce a wider range of products than we otherwise could without significant investment. Our new partnership with water and energy efficiency specialist SaveMoneyCutCarbon is designed to help customers save millions of pounds in utility bills. The partnership gives our customers special rates on proven energy and water-saving products and access to the hands-on expertise of a full service energy efficiency company.

SaveMoneyCutCarbon has supplied and installed hundreds of thousands of products in offices, hotels, restaurants, schools, hospitals and other commercial premises, giving it a deep insight into which products work best and how different businesses can achieve significant savings. It has delivered savings of more than £1 million for customers in the past 12 months by installing more efficient LED lighting, water management and heating and ventilation systems.

By working in partnership with customers, we developed a new funding approach that allows them to invest in water efficiency without any upfront costs. Through our gain-share scheme, we pay the upfront costs of the repair work, which are later recouped through the savings achieved.

As part of our commitment to customer service, we have interviewed more than 400 customers in the past year about their expectations of their water supplier, and the importance of innovation came across loud and clear. Essentially, we made the shift away from simply billing customers and listening to their issues a long time ago. Now we take a proactive approach, considering customers’ problems, exploring options and making proposals. It is an ongoing process of improvement.

Bob Wilson, managing director, Anglian Water Business