How clean data helps Southern Water identify vulnerable customers
Following sizzling on the heels of the Covid pandemic, the present cost-of-living disaster is placing rising stress on customers and their skill to steadiness competing monetary calls for.
The StepChange Debt Charity obtained 14,000 new shoppers for debt recommendation in June 2022, with round one in 5 of these citing a rise in the price of residing as a primary purpose for falling into debt. In truth, StepChange cites the cost-of-living hike as the only mostly talked about purpose for debt amongst new shoppers.
The charity reported that 28% of latest shoppers have accountability for water payments. While households haven’t seen their water payments escalate in the identical means as fuel and electrical energy, the overall squeeze on family funds means many are battling all of their outgoings.
StepChange’s findings are mirrored in a research from data firm Sagacity, which has discovered that two-thirds of the UK – about 18.6 million households – are anxious about their skill to pay utility payments, but simply 6% of the individuals surveyed have particularly requested their utility provider for assist.
Quite a lot of initiatives have been launched, by authorities and regulators, for utilities to restrict the influence of the cost-of-living disaster on probably the most vulnerable members of society.
Over a 20-month pilot interval from 2020, water regulator Ofwat awarded £63m by means of its innovation fund. One of the profitable tasks, Water4All, a consortium led by Southern Water, goals to assist customers who could also be battling payments by enhancing how low-income and vulnerable households are recognized to allow them to be higher supported.
Identifying properties
Southern Water is already working with Sagacity, one other member of the consortium, to assist it higher identify properties that could be empty and the place customers have moved with out informing the utility firms.
Sagacity’s proprietary Occupier ID verifies, corrects and updates poor quality data to get rid of errors and complaints, leading to extra correct billing and an improved service to customers. Rather than relying solely on matching completely different datasets, Sagacity makes use of analytics to clean buyer data. The data it makes use of consists of, however just isn’t restricted to, proprietary data, credit score reference data, Land Registry and specialist third-party datasets.
When transferring properties, contacting the water provider just isn’t all the time the best precedence. This renders data within the billing database inaccurate and means individuals residing in such properties are sometimes despatched shock payments addressed to “The Occupier”. This is turning into a rising difficulty for firms and is leaving many customers with out entry to the assistance they could want.
Describing the significance of clean and accurate customer data, Donna Howden, Southern Water head of customer support, says: “Water4All brings together water and data companies. With Sagacity, we are working together to look at how we find customers who are financially vulnerable. Some may be struggling to pay energy bills and won’t pay for water.”
By analysing data from Sagacity, she says it could be potential to identify who’s having monetary difficulties and could also be liable to having their water provide reduce off.
Southern Water has seen a rising development of properties with out an recognized occupier, which suggests payments can’t be issued and customers can’t be contacted. While a few of these properties are empty, or void, others should not, which creates a variety of challenges for the corporate and its customers. Where payments should not being paid or meters not being learn, the water that’s getting used just isn’t solely misplaced income, however can also be usually misplaced water and seen as leakage.
As a part of Ofwat’s 2019 price review, the water regulator stipulated that water firms should set up a efficiency dedication masking the administration of web site gaps (unbilled properties) and voids (vacant properties), for each family and non-household customers.
This means water firms want to know who lives within the property, whether or not there was a property growth, and if data is lacking, reminiscent of the place the data for a given avenue has some numbers lacking, says Howden. This can occur when two homes are mixed to create a bigger property.
The worth of clean billing data
Identifying these hole properties is a key step in serving to the water firm perceive if somebody is struggling to pay the water invoice. Referencing a research from StepChange, Howden says customers new to debt take, on common, 12 months to succeed in out to the provider.
“Historically, we have always done some form of trace with search agencies,” she provides. “We could have a customer living in a property who is eligible for financial support from us or can register for our priority service.”
But, to identify these vulnerable customers, clean and correct data is required. During a pilot of the data cleansing challenge, Sagacity cleansed and validated 98% of the accounts Southern Water provided, considerably decreasing situations of incorrect addresses. As a consequence, in 31% of the circumstances, Sagacity recognized an occupier with a powerful stage of confidence, enabling Southern Water to contact these customers, who have been beforehand both unknown or listed incorrectly, and invoice them accordingly.
Putting apart the restrictions imposed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Howden hopes that in the future it will likely be potential for all utilities to share data in a means that might assist them perceive when a property has a brand new occupier and whether or not that particular person could also be eligible for monetary help.
“Identifying occupiers gives us a true picture of our region, customers and demographics,” she says. “It enables us to provide our full range of services to customers, especially those who need our support the most. This has never been more critical, with the current cost-of-living crisis impacting so many people.”
