Price Review 2024 Engagement

Our client, a water supplier, have laid out a long-term delivery plan, designed to tackle key challenges faced by the UK, and particularly the water industry, head on.

To inform this strategy and to deliver customer insights relating to three different areas of their PR24 business plan, our client commissioned Impact to run qualitative research looking at three areas – Water Quality, the Environment and Resilience.

There were three separate research objectives given, one for each of the three areas:

1. What “exceeding customer expectations on water quality” means to customers?
2. How supportive are customers of our client’s Environmental Improvement programme?
3. How can customer understanding, and perceptions of resilience, inform our client’s framework?

A qualitative research approach, containing reconvened focus groups and in-depth interviews, was designed to answer these objectives. A total of 48 respondents were invited to attend a series of focus groups, supplemented by an additional 6 in-depth interviews.

We recruited customers from all different areas within our client’s operating region, including a broad range of customer types, such as those living in vulnerable circumstances, fuel poverty as well as future customers, i.e., those not currently contributing to their water bill. Each respondent attended either four focus groups, one on water quality, one on the environment and two on resilience, or three depth interviews, one of each of the topics mentioned above. The sessions were conducted over consecutive weeks, and respondents had to agree to participate in all of them, to be eligible. Respondent attendance was consistent over the weeks, with the vast majority of those that attended the first session, attending all four.

The sessions were ordered in terms of difficulty to understand, and in the final resilience session, semiotic analysis was used.

The research showed that across the three core objectives, there were two overarching themes, the cost-of-living crisis, and the need for education and communication. Generally, customers are willing to pay a little but more on their bill for certain improvements to be made, but expect to be told where the money is being spent.

The method of reconvening the sessions worked very well, and very positive client feedback was given, explaining that the objectives were clearly answered.