United Utilities

A sector-first app that streamlines customer service

Building the UK’s First Water Utility App

United Utilities is one of the UK’s largest water companies, supplying water and wastewater services to approximately 7.4 million people, 3 million households and 200,000 businesses across the North West of England.

United Utilities came to Apadmi with two key priorities. Firstly, the organisation wanted to improve customer experience with greater access to billing information and clearer communication. Secondly, it needed a tool which could be used by the internal operations team to assess customer satisfaction and track reports of water leaks.

Key Achievements

In-depth profiling of United Utilities customers and the resulting UX work led to an app which was intensely focused on improving all use cases. From submitting meter readings in the dark (with the help of an automatic torch) to reporting a leak, paying bills or getting in touch with customer services.

Features

The “Report a Leak” feature enabled users to register leaks quickly, submit images and automatically add their exact location, saving time, money and water. The feature added context to issues, ensuring the United Utilities team could deal with leaks based on their severity, while deepening its customer engagement – a critical part of any business.

Users

United Utilities’ initial goal was to hit 30,000 users in the first year after launching the app. This was achieved only 10 months after launch. The app has now been downloaded more than 100,000 times, equating to a 29% growth in the active digital customer base.

Payments

The app facilitated £7.5 million in bill payments, while reducing the volume of calls to customer services. It is the most actively used payment channel handling 55,000 – 70,000 payments a month.

Cost Savings

The cost per billing letter to customers for United Utilities is 0.58p, so bringing consumers to the app to view bills digitally has helped reduce this expense for the business on a large scale. Cost savings equate to a 10% reduction in internal costs through self-serve payments.

Award Winning

The United Utilities app won the Customer Service Initiative of the Year at the Water Industry Awards (2019), and the Customer Engagement Award at the Utility Week Awards (2018)