A major new report from Capita’s legal, financial and regulatory services business has highlighted how improvements to payment collections and debt recovery will play a vital role if the water industry is to rise to the twin challenge of increasing regulation and rising customer expectations.
The white paper identifies payment collections and recovery of consumer debt as the paramount challenge for water companies.
Ahead of Ofwat’s impending PR2019 price review, the white paper, Payments, Collections and Recoveries in the Water Industry: Five Years of Challenge and Change, explores key challenges for water suppliers in the near future, including weakened customer confidence, a growth in the number of vulnerable customers and rising consumer debt.
Crucially, the report highlights the increasing impact of regulation to bring the industry in line with financial services, and the associated pressure of complying with new regulations.
It goes on to set out a roadmap for suppliers to build resilience and readiness to be able to meet these challenges head on. The report suggests there are two changes in approach which can be employed now to help water companies meet the needs of their customers:
Employing a truly integrated end-to-end consumer journey from an operational, data, and technological perspective;
Working with business process and customer experience experts to provide best practice, to operate services compliant to the highest standards, and to implement leading technologies and innovation.
Daniel Hewett, solutions director, Capita’s legal, financial and regulatory services business, said:
“Water suppliers will be expected to meet changing behaviour and expectations, with most people now expecting an omni-channel approach with full accesses to all their relevant data and account history.”
“Furthermore, water suppliers are among the hardest hit when customers fall behind with their household bills, suggesting more needs to be done to support vulnerable customers and help them avoid falling into arrears.
“As the industry heads towards the latest Ofwat Price Review (PR19), it is vital that suppliers seek to minimise these risks now if they are to thrive in a competitive and more regulated environment.”
The report concludes strong partnerships with business process experts can provide valuable help for suppliers to transform both their end-to-end customer experiences and debt collection services.
It suggests such partnerships can offer:
- Helping to define improved business processes which may not be a core capability or strength of suppliers;
- The mature application of current and emerging best practice;
- Access to innovation and technology as an integral element of outsourced services
- Assured operational practices across regulatory regimes that meet existing and anticipated future regulation;
- The ability to flex and scale operations dynamically to match demand.
Click here to access the white paper Payments, Collections and Recoveries in the Water Industry: Five Years of Challenge and Change
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