Welsh Water’s focus on innovation and transformation has been recognised at two award ceremonies this week thanks to the company’s work on an extensive change programme designed to modernise, digitise, and automate its services.
The company, which is the only not-for-profit water company in England and Wales, has been rewarded for its work to improve services for customers and enhance technology for its colleagues.
The Transformation team took the Gold award in the ‘Transformation Team of the Year’ category at the National Contact Centre Awards for delivering a suite of digital services designed to improve the customer experience. These services include:
- A single secure online service called ‘My Account’ through which customers can manage their account, view bills, and track water and sewerage services.
- A ‘Track My Job’ portal through which customers can communicate with engineers en route to a job and track how far away they are at any time.
- Automated web forms allowing customers to self-serve actions like updating account details, amending payment details, submitting meter readings, join the free Priority Services register, or apply for financial support.
- An AI powered chatbot and live chat integration enabling customers to receive quicker answers to simple questions on their channel of choice.
The company was also this week commended at the ERP Today awards for its collaborative work with Capgemini to enhance the work of their teams of essential key workers. Frontline teams have seen their capabilities boosted thanks to Welsh Water’s innovative ‘Digital Field IT’ programme.
Managing Director of Household Customer Services, Sam James said: “Delivering an extensive change programme in a large business which delivers an essential service is no small task. It’s always been important to us to approach any transformation work from the perspective of the customer – it’s all about creating and adapting services to make things quicker, simpler, and easier.
“The Transformation team has done great work so far and there’s plenty more to come. We’re all really proud that their incredible work-ethic and determination to do the right thing for our customers has been recognised at these awards.”