Welsh Water: Improving customer satisfaction by going beyond the regulator to build genuine trust
DCWW’s performance was plateauing after years of double digit improvements. They needed to reset and realign employees around their ambition to ‘earn more customers trust’, moving away from a world in which they’d unwittingly only been striving to satisfy regulators. DCWW’s performance was plateauing after years of double digit improvements. They needed to reset and realign employees around their ambition to ‘earn more customers trust’, moving away from a world in which they’d unwittingly only been striving to satisfy regulators.
70% reduction in
customer complaints
between 2016 and 2017
68% increase in
employee satisfaction
putting it on par with John Lewis
The Challenge
DCWW have long held themselves to the highest standards of customer service and are proud of their performance with customers and with regulators.
However in 2015 they recognised a need to reset and realign around their mission as their performance had started to plateau after years of double digit improvements.
Our challenge was to help them realise their ambition ‘to earn more customers trust everyday’.
Whilst the mission of ‘earning trust everyday was an admirable one it wasn't clear for the teams on the ground, or in management what it meant they needed to do differently day to day.
The Insight
DCWW had focused solely on delivering to the goals and measures of regulators:
Whilst designed to protect customers, these regulators don’t always reflect what would make customers lives better, easier or more enjoyable
Just one example of this is the regulator’s ruling around meter installation: the guidelines were 90 days, so DCWW took 90 day – but customers grew impatient after just a week
Our challenge became to add clarity and energy to the mission, making it the foundation of the team’s everyday work - not just a poster on the reception wall
The Solution
We translated their overarching mission of ‘earning trust everyday’ into a set of customer promises that they needed to keep in order to earn trust, and:
Created measurable KPI’s for each promise that went above and beyond regulatory requirement, describing what would make the biggest difference to customers
Designed a detailed and costed improvement plan in line with each promise. and prioritised across them
Added an ambition to be the UK’s most trusted paid for service provider (via UKCSI scoring) pitting DCWW against the likes of Sky and O2
The Result
DCWW experienced:
A significant reduction in customer complaints, 70% between 2016-17
A substantial increase in UK CSI scores
An Institute of Customer Service accreditation in 2017
In 2017 they conducted a 1000 customer strong consultation on how to use their profits (they voted overwhelmingly not for price reductions but for investment in local communities)
An increase in colleague understanding and satisfaction - 2017 employee survey increase in mission understanding by 45% and satisfaction by 68%