How customers are helping transform Welsh Water
4 May 2021
Our Transformation team is made up of around 40 people. But what is transformation, exactly? What does the team do and why is it important for you - our customers? We chatted with Retail Portfolio Manager, Adam Palmer to find out…
So Adam, tell us about yourself…
Where do I start? I have worked for Welsh Water for nearly 4 years after spending most of my working life in Gwalia Housing in Swansea, where I live. The first 2 years involved lots of travelling up and down the M4 however more recently I have been working from home. I’ve also been juggling work with home-schooling my 2 daughters, Amelia and Ella.
While at first it was great not being stuck in traffic during the daily commute, the novelty soon wore off. I soon found myself having to focus on my wellbeing more than ever, focussing on fitness and taking regular breaks. These days you’ll often find me running through the streets of Swansea during my lunchbreak!
My role in Welsh Water sees me working with lots of different people and teams to deliver change in respect of new processes and systems. One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is seeing the difference we can make to both colleagues and customers in the changes we deliver and despite the challenges of lockdown it has been great knowing we have made a real contribution.
So, tell us about the team…
It’s our job to understand where the business is heading, what current problems need to be solved and then find ways of improving existing systems and processes – or introducing brand new ones. It’s all about ensuring services are consistently improved for our customers and delivering services that are personalised and efficient.
Customer expectations are constantly changing it’s so important to continually improve our services to support ever changing demands. It’s our team’s job to identify where we can make improvements and support the business to put them in place.
I must admit I’ve never worked with such a great bunch of people. The team is made up of so many different characters and skillsets but what is consistent is the constant desire to move forward and deliver benefits to our customers.
What changes have we made for our customers so far?
There are several initiatives I’m particularly proud of. We’ve introduced a new metering system making it easier for customers to submit a meter reading as well as meter readers to complete their day-to-day activities, we’ve completed a piece of work to add automated forms to our website so that customers can self-serve online, and we’ve launched our MyAccount service which lets customers manage their bills and payments without having to pick up the phone and call us.
The one achievement that stands out for me personally is something called Project Connect. We were already working on the launch of a new telephony system when the first national lockdown came into effect. When the announcement came at short notice, the team had to accelerate lots of the work that was already underway – sometimes working long hours to get the job done! And we successfully supported the transition of around 400 contact centre agents to home working so we could continue to deliver essential services to our customers while our colleagues stayed safe and worked from home. Quite frankly it was an amazing achievement by the team.
How are customers involved in the decisions you make?
We firmly believe that customers should be active participants in the development of our services – not just passive listeners. Our approach keeps this principle at its core and we makes sure customers are actively involved at all stages. This could be by taking part in feedback groups, by prototype testing, or through BETA service launches where we launch a new product or service to a small number of customers to monitor behaviours to make sure we’re achieving the outcomes they need.
Quite simply if you want to know what customers want…………ask them!! And ensure you involve them throughout the journey!!
For example, before we designed our MyAccount service we carried out lots of user research forums with students, landlords, and other bill payers. These sessions allowed us to make changes – even down to the wording used or the placement of a button – to make sure the end product would work for the people who’d be using it. Working closely with real customers means we can continually improve and tweak our services based on the feedback they give us. This can only be a good thing and helps us enhance the services we can offer.
We’re always working behind the scenes to make things better for customers too. For example, we monitor our website to keep track of customer behaviour and clicks on our pages; colored lines help visualize where customer have clicked or moved their cursor and it’s been great to see the reduction of the colored scribbles as our online services become easier to navigate! Being able to understand where the pinch points are has helped us make the website much simpler to use and now customers can use the site seamlessly to get exactly what they need to go.
What does the future hold for the team?
I’m genuinely excited to see how we can build on what has been such a successful period that has seen us deliver so much as well as gain maturity in new ways of working. I feel as a team we have a great team spirit that has got better due to the challenges we have overcome over the last 12 months and with all the changes we have planned I’m excited to see customers benefiting from what we will be delivering.
Find out more about online billing with MyAccount