The Utilities Landscape webinar

In case you missed our recent webinar ‘The Utilities Landscape’ brought to you by TieTa and DebtStream – on Wednesday, 23rd November at 10 am you can check out the discussions we had on the day below.

 

Hosted by DebtStreams, Head of Partnerships and Enterprise, Brett Ellis, the discussion outlines how the utility sector can evolve its collections strategy, driving forward in the current landscape with the cost-of-living crisis putting more customers into arrears. 

 

With households gas and electricity prices rising by 95% and 54% respectively  from June 2021 to June 2022, along with further pressures on cost of living due, Energy companies will need to rethink their debt collection models if they are looking to support their customers, and manage the scale of people that are likely to fall into arrears.

 

The webinar covered the following areas:

1) Prioritising Vulnerable Customers – with Caroline Walton, CEO at TieTa & Martin O’Donnell, CPO at DebtStream.

 

2) How can the utilities sector learn from the Financial services sector, such as affordability assessments – with Gareth Bailey, CEO at DebtStream & Caroline Walton, CEO at TieTa

 

3) Adoption of Digital Technologies – with David Lemon, Head of Customer Insight at Connected Data, & John Mcmahon, VP of Sales EMEA & APAC at C&R Software.

 

4) High churn rates in the contact centre and how that affects the customer and employee – with Tom Horne, CCO at TieTa & Adam Bribdle, Director of Client Delivery at TieTa.

 

5) Debt Collection / Recoveries what does the road map look like in 2023 and beyond – with Martin O’Donnell, CPO and Co-Founder at DebtStream,Tom Horne, CCO at TieTa & Andrew Trevelyan, Head of Partnerships at TieTa.

 

Check out the webinar below

Our speakers

Check out our speakers from the ‘Utilities Landscape’ below.

 

Head of Customer Insight

Head of Partnerships

Director of Client Delivery

Our host

Brett Ellis our Head of Partnerships & Enterprise hosted the Utilities Landscape webinar.

 

Head of Partnerships & Enterprise

Interested to know more?

If there is anything discussed by the speakers today you want to explore further, or want to find out more about their services book in an initial discovery session with Brett so we can find out how best to help you.

 

Book a 15 minute discovery session –  Meeting with Brett Ellis
Get further insights on our Resources page
Know more about our team – About Us 
About our solutions here –  Our Products

Q&A from the webinar

We received some interesting questions from you all during the session, so here is a list of the Q&A that you might find helpful

The focus has started to increase digital or non-digital focusing on how customer journeys are designed to support vulnerable customers. One of the key elements, whether through an agent or a digital journey, is personalisation, as customers fall into different circumstances that can be considered vulnerable. So ensuring data is leveraged/captured to identify the customer’s circumstances with the understanding of relevant support for them allows you to build out journeys to facilitate delivering this support.

 

We should all consider how we use digital to improve our products for better business and outcomes for all.

Communities can, if used correctly, be really valuable; as digital grows, gaining feedback from people using online services and any difficulties they have can be helpful but also, at the same time, supports customers understanding through communities that you are there to support them, based on their circumstances.

If it is affordable for a customer, you can set them up with a smaller payment plan which can be reviewed through self-service or the call centre to increase the plan as their circumstances improve. As you’ve noted, this would also support the creditor from having the account time-barred.

Collections operations and roles of traditional collectors are evolving.  From the digital interactions through to the agent interactions vulnerability is a key piece in areas such as agent training to support these customers or capturing signs / data showing customers who could be vulnerable through digital journeys to enable offering them the right support. 

 

This is a decision for businesses, but supporting these customers should be across the lifecycle so customer service teams and collections teams alike are aware of how to support people in vulnerable circumstances, it is not just something to consider for one or the other in terms of departments.

The team at TieTa can support collections & recoveries outsourcing from early arrears through to later stage which includes litigation, including partner companies who are specialists in litigation.

As core CRMs or Collections systems are modernising, leveraging data and digital technology this has enabled more insights or personalised agents journeys to be brought through to the agent.  Some of the key areas we have seen this happen is highlighting to an agent key prompts on the customer, such as:

 

  • The customer has been identified as being potentially vulnerable previously or through external data sources, allowing the agent to tailor their conversation to support this customer.
  • Identifying a customer who has missed previous arrangements, prompting the agent to get in place an alternative arrangement that is more sustainable for the customer.
  • Data being used to personalise the agents journey itself, showing key areas the agent needs to confirm with the customer or take them through reducing QA issues for example with adhering to regulations.
  • Digital engagement data showing different activities customers have completed online enabling agents to offer more informed conversations with customers.

Skills based routing has been a topic for a few years in the industry through profiling agents, ensuring the customers are directed to the right person to help them with their account.  This is something that will evolve further and profiling will be key, enabling personalised journeys for agents within collections systems, giving additional prompts to guide them through if an agent is identified as not being very strong in a particular area for example.

Other articles

Product updates and insights, straight to your inbox

Sign up to get updates on our products, industry insights and to keep in touch with what we are up to at DebtStream.

By submitting this form, you agree to hear from DebtStream about our products and services (as per our terms and conditions and privacy policy). You can unsubscribe at any time.

Collections, Made Digital

Redefining customer-centric Collections & Recoveries solutions, driven by digital innovation.

By submitting this form, you agree to hear from DebtStream about our products and services (as per our terms and conditions and privacy policy). You can unsubscribe at any time.

By submitting this form, you agree to receive promotional messages from DebtStream about its products and services (as per our terms and conditions and privacy policy). You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link at the bottom of our emails.

Collections, Made Digital

Redefining customer-centric Collections & Recoveries solutions, driven by digital innovation.

By submitting this form, you agree to hear from DebtStream about our products and services (as per our terms and conditions and privacy policy).  You can unsubscribe at any time.

Read our case study

By submitting this form, you agree to receive promotional messages from DebtStream about its products and services (as per our terms and conditions and privacy policy). You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link at the bottom of our emails.