Context
A regional water company had a well-established Priority Services Register (PSR) and met its regulatory obligations around vulnerability, but recognised a significant gap: the insight it held about vulnerable customers rarely reached the colleagues who visited their homes.
Challenge
Field engineers carried out thousands of home visits each year for meter readings, repairs and supply issues. In many of these visits, the customer was on the PSR. Yet engineers arrived without knowing the customer’s circumstances, whether that was a mobility difficulty, a mental health condition, a hearing impairment or a household where English was not the first language.
This mattered. A visit that went well for most customers could be distressing, confusing or inaccessible for a vulnerable customer if the engineer had no context. Colleagues in the field described wanting to do the right thing but not knowing what they were walking into.
What we did
Delehanty Consulting developed a Vulnerability Ambition and Vulnerability Strategy, followed by an Inclusive Design sprint focused on the “My repair” customer journey. The work started by understanding which visits most needed vulnerability insight. Not every PSR record required action at the point of a visit, so the team worked with vulnerable customers, field colleagues and operational data to build a clear understanding of which vulnerable customer needs were most relevant to the repair experience.
The solution gave engineers pre-visit visibility of relevant vulnerability information for the customers who needed it most, alongside practical guidance on how to adapt their approach. This approach was tested through synthesised prototypes of this data, with some real customer visits, before being evolved together with vulnerable customers and field teams until the customer, colleague, and commercial impact was sufficiently proven.
What changed
Engineers arrived better prepared. Customers whose needs were understood before the visit described a noticeably better experience. Repeat visits fell, because engineers were more likely to complete the job successfully the first time when they understood the customer’s circumstances. Colleague confidence in the field rose measurably.
Outcome
The water company estimated annual savings of over £400,000 from reduced repeat visits, fewer complaints and more efficient field operations. The strategy gave the board a clear framework to assess whether vulnerable customers were receiving adequate scrutiny across the business. What started as a gap in field operations became a catalyst for embedding vulnerability insight across the company, delivering better outcomes for all customers.