Welsh Water launches ‘industry first’ bilingual chatbot

Utility says new digital tool will help gauge views of a wider range of customers

Welsh Water has launched a bilingual online customer ‘chatbot’ to gauge customers’ views on affordability and how its is performing on major issues such as climate change.

In what the company claims is an industry first, Welsh Water will use the voice activated device to engage with a much wider range of its three million customers. 

The new service is part of the company’s ‘Have Your Say’ consultation and is aimed particularly at younger customers, according to head of marketing Morgan Lloyd. 

Customers who log on through Facebook will be asked to respond to specific questions on upgrading water and sewer networks, keeping bills affordable and how well the utility is performing in the communities.

They can also rank how the utility should prioritise responding to major challenges it faces over the next few decades, such as water quality, improving services, helping customers struggling to pay their bills, and keeping beaches and rivers clean.

Lloyd said data gathered from the chatbot would “form an essential element in shaping the company’s business plan” which it will submit to the regulator.

He added: “From these results and other consultations we are running across our service areas, we will prioritise the key issues raised by our customers and that will determine what we have to deliver, particularly in the long term.

“Overall, the results will feed into our 2050 consultation which aims to target improvements to services and help keep bills lower.”

Asked whether the digital service would replace human customer service interaction, he said: “We are of course still speaking to people face-to-face at a range events across our area but this new system gives us the opportunity to capture even more information and opinions.

“We are finding we can engage a younger audience who are switched on to digital communications. This is a very convenient method allowing people to engage whenever they chose …it brings our work to life in a fun, quick and engaging way.”

Lloyd confirmed that there had been a significant financial investment “of tens of thousands of pounds” in the programme and that the return would be “invaluable in helping shape our overall business plan and going forward”.

He added: “This is a world-first initiative for the Welsh language that allows us to reach and target demographic groups that may not traditionally have their say – be that young people or hard to reach groups, all without the problem we used to face of dropout during channel shifting online. People will able to have their say via a messenger chatbot for the very first time”.

Lloyd also confirmed that other customer-facing operations may benefit from this new approach. He said: “This kind of automation is growing certainly across retailers and if in the future there is potential for expansion we will look at it wherever there is an ability to deliver better services to customers but only where the customer will benefit.”