Don’t trust us, trust them

Partnering with community leaders is a brilliant way of winning trust, particularly among hard-to-reach groups, writes Kathy Oxtoby

Negative press, unwelcome door-knocking and confusion about how costs are calculated. These are just some of the reasons why customers say they don’t trust utility companies. Connecting with communities is one avenue for restoring trust.

Steve Thomson, UK managing director of research agency Keller Fay, says: “In times of austerity or national plight, consumers increasingly look to their communities as a reference point for making decisions. Word of mouth is statistically significant, more so in the utility sector when compared with other sectors.”

According to Dil Patel, chief executive of community engagement agency Jalebi, consumers looking for advice about energy providers turn to community leaders who are the people they trust in their own communities. “This means those communities that have a strong word-of-mouth culture are becoming the key reference points. Energy providers have lost trust, so people turn to those they do, to work out whom to choose,” he says.

The opportunities for utilities here are vast. According to the Jalebi database, there are 16,000 communities in the UK with more than 1,000 members, and they connect to around 8.3 million households. By working more closely with communities and their leaders, utilities can take advantage of the many different opportunities available that can help promote and foster trust in their services – from advertising services in a community centre to running a stall at a local event to promote special deals for customers.

“Getting people to talk positively about your brand is the ultimate goal,” says Patel. He adds that engaging with community leaders can drive the response rate from customers by up to 200 per cent.

However, utilities should be aware that these days community leaders no longer go cap in hand to brands for sponsorship. Instead “they have a suite of win-win initiatives that brands can connect into”,

says Patel.

Last October, Npower had a stand at the Diwali Festival of Lights in Northampton town centre, giving the organisation access to some 5,000 people who attended this annual one-day event. Jalebi had introduced Npower to the Indian Hindu Welfare organisation (IHW). IHW chair Neela Aggarwa says having the Npower stand at the festival was a “win-win”. “The people of Northampton benefitted from having advice about utilities, and our charity received a donation from Npower. And Npower had access to a community whose needs it may not normally have been able to tap into.”

Last November, Npower also had a stand at the Diwali festival in Crawley, West Sussex. Npower contacted the Gurjar Hindu Union (GHU) – a minority ethnic-led charity – via Jalebi, to hire a stall and help subsidise the festival. Ashwin Soni, trustee director of the charity, says the community, which has 5,000 members, appreciated having Npower there to give advice about energy services and that, in turn, the organisation received “lots of enquiries”. The charity also changed its contract to Npower as a supplier of electricity for its community centre.

Eon, too, believes in the value of building trust in utilities by working with local community leaders. “Our community policy is not to just design projects that we believe will benefit a particular community, but rather to work with community partners to develop, implement and run activities that they value,” says Suzanne Doxey, community relations manager, Eon (see box).

A recent example is its Sustainable Energy Fund initiative, a funding stream for energy efficiency projects in local community schemes that ran across the country from 2011 to 2012. The company has also worked with community leaders through its 18-month Community Energy Fit pilot project, aimed at tackling fuel poverty and unemployment. Since the project began in August 2011, more than 550 people have received training in basic energy efficiency, and more than 100 community volunteers have been recruited to pass on their knowledge and help local people reduce their fuel bills.

Utilities could do more, though, according to Patel. For example, he suggests energy suppliers could offer six months free gas and electricity to community centres, if 1,000 households from the community switch providers.

To fully understand the needs of communities, utilities should focus on building long-term relationships. Doxey stresses that with Eon’s community projects: “We look to leave a legacy within the local community, so that when our funding or other support has to come to an end (as we move into other areas or on to new partnerships), community leaders and groups are able to continue activity in some form.”

For community groups, having a long-term relationship with a utility company is also a crucial part of fostering trust in the sector. As Soni says: “It’s not enough for a utility company to turn up at a community event as a ‘one-off’. We need to build confidence in that company – and with that confidence will come the trust.”

Kathy Oxtoby is a freelance journalist

There are two schools of thought on driving genuine change in community behaviour.

The first is that change must be driven by those in authority – politicians, councillors, private companies or whoever. Communities are engaged and consulted on an issue, which may then lead to a belief in the need to act. The other is that change only comes from people who are passionate about an issue. Small personal connections made by individual members of a community add up to a large grass roots movement and people themselves form groups to achieve shared goals. This is the model used effectively by the likes of 38 Degrees, Avaaz and other advocacy networks.

We have recently worked with a local community group in Cheshire – Low Carbon Lymm. The group was formed when a group of residents got together to “green” the village. Volunteers bid for funding from the Department of Energy and Climate Change with the full support of Warrington Borough Council and have since successfully delivered a Green Deal Pioneers project to drive early uptake of assessments and Green Deal installations. This is a genuine example of people-powered change for the greater good.

Our work with Anglian Water to pilot a sustainable communities approach also provides useful lessons. We engaged local community groups and seeded awareness of issues and opportunities in three areas: water efficiency; reducing pollution by reducing the volume of unflushables disposed of inappropriately; and enjoying water. We approached existing community groups that were active in the local area and supported them to take ownership of water issues in a variety of ways, including education, access to funding, capacity building and opportunities for active engagement.

The results were encouraging. Engagement on an individual level through trusted spokespeople was effective at generating awareness of the issues and changing attitudes about the value of water. Blockages declined by 85 per cent in the target area. However, it was also clear that the groups would require sustained support and encouragement to take real ownership.

What can we learn from this? Nirvana is finding the local mavens and connectors who truly believe in a shared goal. Offering a clear benefit to engagement always helps, yet localism ultimately relies on the authentic beliefs of real people acting for the common good and can’t be imposed.

Belinda Miller is director of insight at Corporate Culture, a sustainable behaviour change agency

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 24th May 2013.

Get Utility Week’s expert news and comment – unique and indispensible – direct to your desk. Sign up for a trial subscription here: http://bit.ly/zzxQxx