Background and objectives
In recent years our client, a gas distributor, has run research to track awareness of carbon monoxide (CO) and the Priority Service Register (PSR), areas which have taken on even more significance since the creation of a use-it or lose-it £60m Vulnerability and Carbon Monoxide Allowance (VCMA) fund from Ofgem. The fund is available to encourage investment in innovation and initiatives to tackle vulnerability and carbon monoxide awareness.
- Research about carbon monoxide (CO) is important as it is essential the general public is aware of the warning signs of CO poisoning as these can be difficult to diagnose, with many of the symptoms identical to flu or food poisoning.
- PSR research is important as our client continues to work hard to both increase customer awareness of this service and to drive up registration across its network, both of which remain stubbornly low, possibly due to a lack of public knowledge or understanding of this free service
In 2023, our client required a further wave of research to inform decisions around their CO and PSR campaigns and commissioned Impact to measure whether customer awareness had changed since the research was last run, in November 2020.
Approach
A predominantly online methodology was utilised to obtain a comprehensive and accurate understanding of our client’s customers’ knowledge of the PSR and CO (how it is caused, how to prevent it, CO detector penetration, perception of wearable technologies, and how and where both areas should be promoted).
The 15-minute survey was completed by 2,104 respondents: 1,800 domestic (including 100 future bill payers) and 100 SMEs online, supplemented with 104 CATI interviews among those more likely to be on the PSR (digitally excluded and vulnerable customers). Quota targets on the main online sample were based on ONS and Census data for North East England, and sub-group analysis undertaken based on the nine relevant regions and socio-demographic criteria such as age, gender, social grade and tenure.
Outcome
This project provided valuable insights into the awareness of CO and the PSR among customers covered by the client.
The results from the sub-group analysis resulted in individualised recommendations for each of the 9 regions based on the results. This was used by the communications team to direct their CO campaigns.