A major finding of our Out in the Cold report was that companies needed to improve the ways they communicated with their customers. In companies’ plans, we’ve seen some innovative steps in the right direction. We particularly encourage the new ideas and tools that companies are exploring in order to understand their customers, and it was good to see that some companies tested these approaches during the hot weather.
We are also encouraged by the companies that are creating localised, bespoke strategies for communicating with their customers, and those that have demonstrated that they are listening to what their customers are telling them.
That said, there’s no substitute for the basics. It’s important that communications strategies are incorporated into general incident response mechanisms, and both we and CCWater encourage companies to ensure they have increased call centre staff on hand to respond when incidents occur.