Evidence-Led Support to Meet Ofgem & Ofwat Vulnerability Expectations for Regulated Industries

Regulated industries fall victim to limited household reach. With their service delivery rarely having constant contact, unless the user were to reach out directly, they would be none the wiser to those households who are digitally excluded, fuel poor and hard to reach. Contact usually entails using the regulated industry website or contacting their call centres.

This leads to a shortfall in what these regulated industries can provide for individual households on the basis that they do not have a trusted and specialised relationship with each individual household.

With a heavy focus on Net Zero and reducing the UK's carbon footprint, regulated industries are obligated to increase their sales uptake for smart meters, time-of-use tariffs, EV charging stations and heat pumps at scale. This is whilst continuing to maintain the delivery of a positive customer experience.

With this raised demand and consistent expectation for perfect delivery, the concern of increasing the number of vulnerable households, due to leaving those who lack the digital skills comes to light. Measures for excellent customer satisfaction are built on moments of contact, but during power cuts or connection queries these vulnerable households are cut off and left behind; leading to a negative experience. Which can lead to reduced satisfaction scores and increased risk of regulatory penalties.

Regulated industries are being pressured into reducing their call volumes.

Calls are expensive so the expectation of moving users to digital self-service is considered more cost effective and efficient. This however increases the number of households categorised as vulnerable because not all households have the digital skillset to have a positive self-service experience. 

This also generates increased cost for regulated industries as vulnerable households are more likely to:

• Make contact on multiple occasions

• Face arrears

• Require tailored support.

Limitations also arise when trying to get in contact with these individuals, due to lack of digital skills cutting them off from acknowledging digital outreach. This acts as the hardest operational challenges due to minimised proactive identification of relevant household members and engagement.

Regulators Ofgem and Ofwat continue to push for the sharing of PSR data as they have acknowledged that this will create new expectations for coordinated vulnerable household support across all regulated industries.

The challenge, most of these established regulated organisations are not equipped with the local and on-the-ground delivery infrastructure to turn shared data into practical help leading to the utilisation of community partners to reach households, build trust and deliver targeted support to specific geographical areas but this is not always manegable.