UU: Customer service is an emotional interaction not a process

Coronavirus has hit some communities and areas of the country harder than others both in numbers of cases and the economic impact. Operating in one of the most deprived regions United Utilities has had thousands of customers apply for hardship assistance, before and during the outbreak. Utility Week talks to Louise Beardmore, customer services and people director, about how the business does more to assist those in need.

“Covid-19 is exposing social issues and social differences so after all this we will have to look very hard at social equality and what that means for society as a whole.” Indeed, looking at hot spot maps of confirmed cases in England, there is a concentration in the north west, which also has 50 per cent of the most deprived areas in the UK. Beardmore believes the region will feel the ramifications of the virus for a long time to come.

“As a region there is a huge dependency on zero-hour contracts, many more roles in transactional, manufactural and service-type labour so we are expecting the impact to be significant,” she explains.

“Affordability impacts our customers as we operate in some of the most deprived areas  in the UK, so these are problems we are living with day in and day out, so if we are delivering a service it has to respond to the needs and requirements of all of our customers.”

The company quickly adapted its payment break scheme to include anyone temporarily impacted financially by coronavirus, but Beardmore says the commitment to these customers is sustained support not a three-month payment break.

“At UU we feel we have an important role to play because we know customers don’t just fall into debt with a water bill – customers are trying to manage multiple creditors.”

The company’s commitment to affordability inspired the creation of the North West Hardship Hub – a one-stop shop tool that is used by the advice sector including more than 500 debt advisors, Citizens Advice and Money Advice Trust. It provides information on food banks, energy tariffs and support schemes, housing support as well as water bills and has been endorsed by the mayors of Manchester and Liverpool.

“As a company we have a relationship with all seven million people who live in the north west, and we are the only business that actually does.  Therefore, we have an ability to connect people together for the greater good.”

Beardmore says the business wanted to make sure people have access to the all the schemes and advice that is available – for water bills and in other parts of life.

“I’m so proud United Utilities helped to design, fund and promote this portal. It’s a great example of how a water company can put itself at the heart of an issue such as affordability, which is already a challenge in the North West and we know due to Covid-19 this is only going to get greater,” she says.

More than 100,000 people have signed up for extra help with bills since March but in Beardmore and her team’s view, support must go far beyond financial assistance.

“It isn’t about how many customers are on our register, it’s about the quality of the service we offer. It isn’t a numbers game but it’s about delivering the right service that’s tailored to people’s needs.”

Staff are encouraged and empowered to go the extra mile to show real compassion for billpayers and the community.

“We always encourage staff to do something if they think it will make a difference to an individual customer. At this time, we recognise that individual circumstances are so different for everyone.  We have always had a sense of empowerment, people want to come to work everyday to do a great job and deliver a great service it’s about empowering people within a framework – to be able to do that.

This has never been more relevant than when hundreds of staff are homeworking and speaking with householders during difficult times.

An example of this in action was when a customer support officer spoke to an elderly lady who was shielding at home and was left a note on her doorstep offering to do grocery shopping. After leaving cash and a list, the shopping was never seen.

Beardmore says: “She had a chat with our agent and said all she had was a tin of soup and was worried about her water bill. We obviously sorted out her water bill but Ben Burrows the agent who took the call was so upset by what he heard that he spoke to his supervisor then after work he visited the supermarket and did a family shop and delivered it to the customer.

“This lady who sobbed down the phone at me asking how could somebody in a call centre who works for a water company show me such kindness? She was literally overwhelmed.”

Another team doing all they could to support customers are Lee Timmins and Graham Jones, two UU wastewater workers, who were contacted after an NHS worker in the Wirral accidentally flushed her engagement and wedding rings down the toilet when cleaning the bathroom. Timmins and Jones sent a camera down the sewer but couldn’t see anything sparkly, so they accessed a pipe outside the house and after sifting through the sewage they found and returned the rings.

“The owners were in floods of tears – not only because she had her rings back but also that we cared enough to do this for her,” Beardmore says.

The couple submitted a WOW Award to acknowledge the service they received, which was one of 1609 WOWs UU employees have received since 23 March. These independent awards recognising exceptional service are celebrated by the company to boost team spirits during homeworking and lockdown.

Another morale booster for the company and communities has been call centre teams working from home who have carried on their weekly charity challenges using apps like Whatsapp while they are away from their offices. The donations raised have been matched by managers up to £500 a week to the charities chosen by the Warrington and Whitehaven teams.

The strong focus on customers is necessitated by the level of need among the seven million customers in UU’s region and was commended by Ofwat in the PR19 business plan, for which UU was one of only three companies to be fast-tracked by the regulator.

It has also achieved and maintained British Standards Institution (BSI) for its provisions and scheme related to vulnerability, which includes the sector’s most extensive range of financial assistance plans from special tariffs to grants and payment breaks. On top of this, the company recently announced it had given £3.5 million to a Trust Fund to help people who struggle to pay their water bills.

Looking to the future, Beardmore says the adaptability and innovation that has emerged should continue as well as the empathy shown to all billpayers.

“I have been really impressed by the speed at which we have made things happen – that includes rapidly deploying technology, new processes. The level of innovation that has been unlocked by the situation. Empowering people to do the right thing and to recognise that this isn’t a process, it is an emotional interaction with another human,” she says.

She says the speed, innovation and the personal empathy engendered by this situation should be held on to as life and businesses return to normal.

“United Utilities – and the sector as a whole – has done a fantastic job working right across the country to keep taps flowing and toilets flushing at what is a difficult time for the colleagues and their own families too,” Beardmore says.

“I clap very loudly on a Thursday night for the NHS and all key workers, but I clap even louder for each and every colleague right across the country who I know is working hard to provide an essential service”.