Customer Experience Award
The panel of judges said entries demonstrated how water and energy companies wanted to go further to meet their customers’ expectations either. In particular there were demonstrations of the improvements that could be made by adopting new systems to simplify experiences for billpayers.
The judges praised companies for how quickly they were able to implement systems under difficult circumstances to provide necessary help in genuinely new ways.
Across energy and water companies, the entries demonstrated real attempts to help customers and judges highlighted that some instances of good practices are being shared. However, they warned that more could be done to learn from within and outside of the utilities sector.
As the expectations of customers grow, the way companies communicate with billpayers is crucial – particularly with harder to reach customers.
The judges said entries demonstrate that companies are seeking ways to improve how their customer service systems operate, as well as how they communicate with billpayers.
Entries for this category also highlighted specific interventions being taken by energy and water companies to raise their game and put customers first in everything they do.
The finalists
Anglian Water - Delivering outstanding experiences every day for our customers
Cadent - Stannington water ingress - incident response
Octopus Energy - Showcasing the best customer experience and vulnerable customer care
Power NI - Electricity Bill Support Scheme
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks - Driving excellence in customer experience
UK Power Networks - Rivalling the best in UK customer service
Customer Experience Award
The panel of judges said entries demonstrated how water and energy companies wanted to go further to meet their customers’ expectations either. Entries demonstrated the improvements that could be made by adopting new systems to streamline the experience for billpayers.
It praised how companies were able to quickly implement systems under difficult circumstances to provide necessary help in genuinely new ways.
Across energy and water companies, the entries demonstrated real attempts to help customers and judges highlighted that some instances of good practices are being shared. However, they warned that more could be done to learn from within and outside of the utilities sector.
As the expectations of customers grow, the way companies communicate with billpayers is crucial – particularly with harder to reach customers.
The judges said entries demonstrate that companies are seeking ways to improve how their customer service systems operate, as well as how they communicate with billpayers.
Applications to this category also highlighted specific interventions being taken by energy and water companies to raise their game and put customers first in everything they do.
The finalists
Anglian Water - Delivering outstanding experiences every day for our customers
Cadent - Stannington water ingress - incident response
Octopus Energy - Showcasing the best customer experience and vulnerable customer care
Power NI - Electricity Bill Support Scheme
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks - Driving excellence in customer experience
UK Power Networks - Rivalling the best in UK customer service
Anglian Water - Delivering outstanding experiences every day for our customers
This year Anglian Water has gone even further to meet the needs of our customers and deliver outstanding customer experiences.
We work hard to continually evolve our service so it’s inclusive, supportive and most importantly, reflects the needs of our community.
From supporting customers financially through the cost of living crisis, engaging with our vulnerable customers through our partnership programmes or helping residents in drought-stressed areas to save water, we’re continually going above and beyond our regulatory requirements to deliver on our purpose to bring social prosperity to the region we serve.
Cadent - Stannington water ingress - incident response
When more than 3,000 homes in Stannington, Sheffield, were left without gas after a burst water pipe flooded the gas network, Cadent led and co-ordinated a multi-agency response. Placing customers at the heart of their operations, we supported everybody affected amid freezing winter conditions last December. Ensuring that vulnerable customers were prioritised, we repaired and replaced over 3,000 affected appliances, doubled GSOP compensation payments, pumped over 1 million litres of water out of our network.
Over the coming months we worked to support the community, making sure that customers were safe and warm in their homes as quickly as possible.
Octopus Energy - Showcasing the best customer experience and vulnerable customer care
At Octopus Energy, we put customers at the heart of everything we do. In 2022 we overcame colossal new challenges and maintained exceptional customer experience by delivering enhanced vulnerable customer care to help the rising numbers of customers struggling to cope, and upskilling the teams that support them, all whilst welcoming 1.5 million Bulb customers. Outstanding results and feedback show our enhanced customer care and innovative new ways of working have made a difference that really matters to our 5.5 million customers, boosted employee engagement and future-proofed success - showcasing customer experience excellence in all market conditions across our industry and beyond.
Power NI - Electricity Bill Support Scheme
In October 2022, Power NI was advised by the government that it was required to distribute £600 to each of its 477,629 customers.
This payment was required in order to support some of the most vulnerable customers in our society, with many struggling as a result of the ongoing Energy and Cost of Living Crises.
Power NI immediately sprang into action, in order to devise a plan that would enable our company to deliver what many have described as our most difficult challenge to-date.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks - Driving excellence in customer experience
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks has delivered a successful customer experience programme resulting in its strongest improvement in 8 years and being the most improved DNO for customer service last year. By implementing a strategy with strong commitments to improving customer experience, supporting customers in need and evolving services to support changing expectations, SSEN has demonstrated that they deliver in the best interest in customers in everything they do.
UK Power Networks - Rivalling the best in UK customer service
Rising energy prices and the cost-of-living crisis are driving changes in customer behaviour, with those who can afford to, rapidly adopting domestic low carbon technologies (LCTs) to manage their energy bills.
Cost pressures have contributed to a UK-wide, cross-sector fall in customer satisfaction, with tolerance for less-than-perfect service plummeting. Against this backdrop UK Power Networks, which is already rivalling top UK brands for customer service, has: 1) Enabled customers to take advantage of LCTs to lower their energy costs 2) Driven higher customer satisfaction to buck the trend 3) Unlocked customer and societal value through opening up data
Utilita Energy - 'Customer first'
In an industry where all suppliers are ranked in the same way, no matter whether they have predominantly credit customers or prepay, Utilita's ‘customer-first’ ethos has seen it rise to the top of the customer service pile, ahead of all UK energy suppliers.
During one of the toughest years for already struggling households, industry and government shortfalls left Utilita with two major challenges it needed to overcome to maintain its excellent service levels.
Through the rapid innovation of two new features, Utilita was able to overcome the challenges and help households stay on supply, on millions of occasions.