There must be better support for vulnerable customers

The water sector must do much more to protect vulnerable customers – but directives from the regulator alone are not enough to ensure that will happen.

As a sector, can we truly claim to offer an effective service for our more vulnerable customers?

In all honesty, I’m not sure we can.

Ofwat’s focus on addressing vulnerability within PR19 indicates that there’s still so much more to be done.

Currently, we could be guilty of restricting our efforts to answer the needs of one or two forms of more high-profile or common customer vulnerability.

A step-change in attitudes towards vulnerable customers is required – a broader, more inclusive, outlook that takes into account each customer’s unique set of circumstances.

Many vulnerabilities are transient, and customers experiencing these forms of vulnerability may not usually be classed as “vulnerable”, or consider themselves to be so; but they will need extra support at specific times.

Internal teams are one of our most valuable resources in the identification and support. However, our employees can only truly empathise with struggling customers if they are trained to understand the full spectrum of vulnerability. Employees can become more empathetic to the lives and needs of more at-risk customers through internal workshops and educational visits from third parties such as charities. Processes, procedures and communications can then be tweaked and improved.

This training is not just invaluable to office-based staff, it could also help front-line teams spot a customer in difficult circumstances.

Our recent research into consumer debt revealed that fewer than one in four consumers are aware of protection against supply disconnection, social tariffs and charitable trust assistance.

So we must do far more to promote the services we offer, ensuring that customers know we are there to support them should they need it.

While regulatory pressures such as PR19 are widely expected to drive positive change in this area, we must be more proactive.

Closer collaboration and data-sharing between providers could also raise awareness of transient customer needs. However, some consumers may harbour reservations about their personal data being shared – particularly in the wake of GDPR. Data sharing isn’t an integral business process, so express consent will need to be gained from customers before any of their data can be shared between providers.

Increased third party collaboration and community engagement is also vitally important to the identification and support of customers in need. We must therefore explore the available avenues – such as community groups – that could be used to reach out to vulnerable customers and raise awareness of the services we offer.

This can be achieved through taking our teams out of the office and into the communities we serve. A consistent brand presence in the community can have a transformative impact on brand awareness, customer engagement, and trust.

Simply put, it’s not enough to address certain vulnerabilities and leave it at that. While we’re addressing many of the more high-profile vulnerabilities out there, less emphasis is being put on more obscure needs which perhaps have a lower profile.

Essentially, truly effective customer service is all about understanding all customers – whether they’re living with a vulnerability or not.

While PR19 certainly provides a motivation for us to build on the promising first steps we’ve made, it’s clear we have a much longer journey ahead of us – of which vulnerability is only a small part.