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Sponsored report 24 | 7TH - 13TH APRIL 2017 | UTILITY WEEK ing about how to apply them to a digital context. That's all we're doing. Your interac- tion with a website should be very similar to your interaction with those best consumer websites." According to Alli, learning about what type of innovations will be welcomed comes down to knowing your customer better. Sometimes, as with an emergency pack for vulnerable customers that UKPN launched in January, technology might not even play a part [see box on this page]. "Don't just introduce technology for the sake of it," says Alli. "Instead, really try to understand what drives customer need and therefore how technology can support that." The irony is that the easiest way of harvesting customer data – and in turn becoming better equipped to service your customers – is through the kind of technol- ogy that companies are trying to encourage their customers to use in the first place. As PwC's Jennings puts it: "More data means knowing more about the customer so you can sell them more." It's something of a virtuous circle, but it requires take-up from customers first. So if that level of mass adoption is still some years away, how else can information be captured? James Robbins, chief information officer at Drax Group, thinks the energy sector for one "missed a trick" when the market was privatised in the late 1990s. "It was a different era when industry switching was set up," he says. "It was all dial-up so you wanted to transfer as little data as possible; we missed a trick because [now] we haven't got a central hub. Distribu- tors have got their own database and retail- ers have got a separate database. "Retailers used to think of that data as their own IP. But we're in a different world where we're much more open about data whether we like it or not." Knowing the customer Drax itself is building web-based interfaces for business customers of its energy retail arm that will allow the company to share data about customers' usage and benchmark it against similar businesses. The tool is only in the build phase, and Drax is exploring how to share the interface with customers. However, similar schemes are already up and running in the consumer space, for example in the form of First Utility's My Energy app. The app allows users to compare energy usage of similar homes in the area (see First Utility box, p22). According to PwC's Jennings, it's an example of how smaller, Brought to you in association with nimble, independent players are more ready to disrupt the market. "What has happened in the domestic energy retail space is [initially] the inde- pendents came in and offered a lower price," he explains. "Now, as competition has got fiercer and margins have got smaller, switch- ing becomes based on differentiation in another form." Robbins agrees: "Ultimately we're prob- ably all searching for another model. If you're new you can get customers to switch by offering a good price. What we're offering here is for people to pay a premium rate but by partnering with the right company they could end up using less." Robbins only recently joined Drax from Northumbrian Water, where he also held the chief information officer role. In the water sector, he believes there is less need for "rad- ical change". "The model there is kind of working," he adds. "There's less excuse for water compa- nies to not know their customers because they're a monopoly." Nicci Russell, managing director at Water- wise, agrees that the water companies' monopoly status in the domestic market is "the big difference" when compared with energy retail. But she thinks that those com- panies still have a way to go before they can really make a difference to customer habits. Southern Water installed 450,000 smart water meters across homes in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, which has cut water use among its customers by more than 16 per cent. But Russell says water com- panies' overall spending on smart metering and retrofitting is "still a drop in the ocean". She thinks that part of the problem is lack of interaction on the customer service side, although some providers are taking steps to address this issue (see box – Northumbrian Water, le). "If they start engaging with customers on water efficiency, they can really work out what customers want to see. The key thing we have been pushing is to turn passive consumers into active participants. It's good for the company but it's really good for the customer as well as it allows them to reduce their water use." Ofwat is also making moves to try to increase customer engagement, while start- ups such as Advizzo are showing how spe- cialised soware can gather data on water usage to deliver savings to consumers and businesses. Cracking the market Oen it takes a disruptive technology or innovation to bring about real change in Northumbrian Water using video smart phone app to see through the eyes of its customers Northumbrian Water is preparing to trial a new video app to help its response team "see through the eyes of its customers". The Utileyes app will allow workers in the company's call centre to access callers' smart phone cameras, with their permission, to see what they are looking at. The company hopes this will help reduce the number of visits required to rectify a problem and reduce the time taken to resolve issues. The app is currently in final stages of devel- opment and the company's team is expecting to start trials this month (April). "We looked at other apps but decided that developing our own would best suit our needs and those of our customers," explains Nigel Watson, group information services director. "Those initial tests with other apps achieved results that proved the value in taking this idea forward and developing Utileyes. "This is an industry-leading piece of innova- tion that will ultimately benefit customers by reducing the time and cost of dealing with their enquiry. "Utileyes will oen remove the need to send a technician to make an initial assess- ment, as we will be able to visually triage the problem remotely, then send a crew out straight away, armed with the knowledge of what they are facing and need to do." Northumbrian Water will assess the results of the trial before rolling it out to its 4.5 million customers in the North East of England, Essex and Suffolk. "The key thing we have been pushing is to turn passive con- sumers into active participants. It's good for the company but it's really good for the customer as well." Nicci Russell, managing director at Waterwise