Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | OCTOBER 2022 | 15 Customers ject development manager for water poverty at fellow charity National Energy Action. She said: "People could still choose to have them [PPMs] and that's entirely their choice, but with the forced PPM installs we are talking about people who are struggling already with a at rate payment. "When you look at seasonal use, around 17% of your annual gas usage is used in January alone and December and February aren't too dissimilar to that, around 15%. So you're talking about three months of that year where you're using more than 40% of your entire gas consumption for that year. The cost of that is huge." Cook further pointed out that PPM cus- tomers are o' en in properties with lower Energy Performance Certi' cate (EPC) ratings: "Therefore this £2,500 cap we are talking about, which isn't a cap because it's based on your own usage, actually will be much higher anyway. We could be looking at £3,500 for an EPC band F, for example. So we need to be mindful of that and think prepayment isn't going to be the best option for them." Data sharing should be at heart of single social tari South East Water's head of customer expe- rience and strategy, Andy Clowes, called for the design of a nationwide social tari™ to incorporate data-sharing on vulnerable customers. He said the proposed move towards a single social tari™ would be an ideal oppor- tunity to match up data from utilities and government. He told the conference how his company was trialling something similar on a local level, which could be scaled up. Last year, South East Water began work- ing with Maidstone Borough Council in Kent to match data and identify new customers that could be auto-enrolled on to the com- pany's social tari™ . Clowes said the com- pany initially had 2,000 customers enrolled on the scheme and receiving the reduced rate in that catchment area. The data match identi' ed a further 4,000 people eligible, with more being added each month. Once enrolled, the customers get a letter from South East explaining they will now pay less for their water bills. Clowes has now called for a similar model to be adopted on a national scale. He told the conference: "Wouldn't life be so much easier if we could simply be told 'here's who is on and here's who is o™ '? We could make sure everyone who is entitled to that social tari™ is on it. "We spend a lot of time, e™ ort and energy as companies dealing with awareness, trying to get customers to sign up and to register. I really feel it's a big opportunity for industries to grab that and make it happen." Asked how this would work in practice, Clowes said: "All our local councils on the current auto-enrolment data- share are technically using DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] data to help them identify custom- ers who are eligible. That's quite a granular approach that could be done much more simply I sus- pect on a national level by DWP or another government department." However, he added: "The chal- lenge we would then have is it becomes intrinsically linked to bene' ts as a system. Given the pre- diction is we're going to have lots of middle-income customers who are going to be struggling to pay, they would not necessarily be on bene' ts." The development of a single social tari™ has been championed by water customer watchdog CCW, which says it would stand- ardise support across the country. CCW cited the opportunities for data-sharing in its pro- posed model for the scheme, set out in its a™ ordability review last year, saying it could help to ensure the hardest to reach custom- ers were not le' out. 'We have to focus on what we can control' Octopus Energy adapted either its tech o™ er- ing, sta™ working patterns, or customer com- munication channels every day during the four weeks preceding the conference, accord- ing to its director of operations, Tara Mullen. While warning that this winter was likely to see the most signi' cant cost of living chal- lenges for a generation, she said she was taking heart from what she described as a "disruptive" period in terms of innovation aimed at mitigating the worst impacts. "Hopefully we can do a lot more for customers and can speed up the digitalis- ing of some of our interventions so that we can make it quick and easy for customers to make decisions around their energy use," she explained. "I think the main thing is that we focus on what we can control. What actions we can take from a practical intervention perspec- tive, use technology as much as possible to provide accessibility and stay as close to the customer as we possibly can in every role." Mullen, who has been at Octopus for two years having previously worked for Tesla, explained that technology is the biggest way she believes utilities can support customers during the cost of living crisis. She said the ' rm's approach is under- pinned by its Kraken platform, which pro- vides services such as billing, payment, meter data, digital self-service and teleph- ony in one place. This allows energy specialists to both quickly access swathes of cus- tomer data and to carry out "health checks" which inform sta™ of any issues a customer may be facing, their Priority Service Register status and any vulnerabilities. However beyond this, Mul- len told delegates that Octo- pus has worked to deepen its pool of expertise through a number of initiatives to upskill sta™ at all levels – for exam- ple, by o™ ering Suicide First Aid training. "At least three or four people in every team are trained to speak to customers in that situation," she said. "I think the scale of the issue now is such that almost every one of our team has to have the ability to support everybody," Mul- len added. "We treat all customers as if they could become vulnerable". As part of this focus, she explained that Octopus has trained "universal energy spe- cialists" – sta™ members skilled in all areas of customer service – and provided them with a™ ordability training in order for them to take on more conversations regarding ' nancial di¨ culty. "That means that we've been able to adapt our team quickly and move from maybe 30 people supporting customers with processes to 1,000 energy specialists being able to work with customers." Octopus has also successfully trialled the introduction of "energy helpers" during the summer and has pledged that they will make 500,000 visits to customers seeking face-to- face support this winter. "Prior to the crisis, a lot of focus was on growth and a num- ber of our brand ambassadors were doing face-to-face promotion of Octopus Energy Services," Mullen explained. "They've now been retrained and are supporting customers in the home with energy advice." Mullen went on to explain the additional work Octopus has done on ' nancial support tools, as well as making sure its commu- nications and billing are couched in plain English. To read a full report on Mullen's presentation go to https://utilityweek.co.uk/how-is- octopus-supporting-customers-during-the- cost-of-living-crisis/ "The scale of the issue now is such that almost every one of our team has to have the ability to support everybody." TARA MULLEN, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, OCTOPUS ENERGY Headline conference sponsor C0-sponsors

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