CCR2 Utilities and Telecoms
What impact will PR19 have on the role of debt resolution?
New pressures on the utilities sector will require new resolutions and new measures of success
Mark Platts Utilities account director, Lowell
Mark.Platts@
lowellgroup.co.uk
The four pillars underpinning OFWATs price review process will soon move water providers’ focus away from the construction of submitted business plans and instead towards the delivery against the following core priorities: enhancing customer service; focusing on the affordability of bills; driving service resilience; and innovating. All of which are sizeable obligations. Additionally water companies need to carefully balance and utilise capital in pursuit of attainment. Increasingly the conversations we hold
with utility sector partners are moving away from purely purchase price and instead towards the development of holistic solutions based around value creation. Typically these solutions now encompass
cash generation, customer experience enhancement, innovation and commercial flexibility. It is apparent the evolving conversation
within debt resolution is a clear response to the impending impact of PR19. The role of the debt specialist is rapidly moving out of purely the arrears arena and instead across the entire customer journey. The broken nature of these journeys has
for a long time formed the recurring basis for the supply of accounts into Lowell.
Vulnerability, affordability and understanding the bill Through PR19 OFWAT provides clear guidelines on the identification of vulnerable customers and the ability to provide effective bill assistance or rehabilitation. There are clear benefits for the water sector
and debt specialists to work collaboratively. Leveraging tools that identify customers in
May 2019
need of additional support and deploying techniques to improve customer financial wellbeing is increasingly important. Furthermore, the amount of failure
demand attached to billing accuracy makes a compelling case for water companies struggling to identify which customer is consuming supply, and across which periods, to work with organisations with extensive customer trace technologies and tools.
With SIM often criticised for its narrow
view of just the water sector, and its failure to reward high performing organisations continuing to drive enhanced experience, there now exists a metric pulling the four strands of priorities set out by OFWAT together. These are all ultimately focused around improving customers’ service provision and experience. Although the focus on resilience and responsive service provision sits outside the
Increasingly the conversations we hold with utility sector partners are moving away from purely purchase price and instead towards the development of holistic solutions based around value creation
Lowell have experienced portfolio
acquisitions where upwards of 70% of the traced customer base are at completely different addresses to those on record with the utility. Struggling to identify liable customers and not effectively identifying vulnerability and offering resolution tools, makes it inevitable that ‘understand my bill’ queries will cause higher call volumes.
Replacing SIM with C-Mex Most interestingly in all elements of PR19 is the replacement of SIM with C-MeX.
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debt arena and firmly within operations, it must always be in born in mind if effective partnerships are to be achieved between water providers and debt resolution specialists. Each extra Pound recovered helps to fund the capital expenditure programmes so crucially at the heart of water providers’ business plans. Making that connection begins the
process of debt resolution specialists generating seamless customer centric solutions that drive value generation and C-MeX performance. CCR2
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