With millions of pounds of investment, and the future of the region’s water supply at stake, determining the best course of action requires a considerable amount of planning, consultation and modelling. These decisions impact the region’s ability to successfully maintain a vital service against the impacts of climate change and population growth. It is key for customers to have a say in this major investment in order to be legitimate.
The North West is a diverse region, from the urban centres of Manchester and Liverpool, to rural Cheshire and the Lake District. Representation and understanding how views differ across the region was integral to the brief.
Nominated as finalist for the 2021 AURA Insight Impact Award.
A pop-up community approach was devised to bring a broad spectrum of households together in one place. There were some 180 participants, including vulnerable and disadvantages customer groups, bill payers of the future, and business customers. The goal of the community was to take customers on a journey. We wanted to truly immerse them in United Utilities’ long-term challenges and the impact of each initiative, to provide the depth of understanding needed to inform business planning.
To break down the complex subject matter, we created a themed, co-branded space with visually engaging research materials, background videos and animations, to help participants understand (and engage with) the content.
Of course, the community platform is just a hygiene factor in this story. The hero is qual-at-scale, with a combination of activities including discussion forums, mini-surveys, video groups and depths that combined to deliver detail-rich and real-time nuanced insights. The activities gradually exposed community members to United Utilities’ initiatives, building their understanding over time. The three-week project culminated in a survey with a final verdict on which solutions should be prioritised.
The findings of our pop-up community/ qual-at-scale approach provided a clear sense of the weight of support and opposition for each initiative, with incredibly rich detail and coverage, and outputs with frameworks for understanding how customers view initiatives that are being widely shared/ used across the business.
Building customers’ understanding of the initiatives was central to the findings’ credibility. Our use of professionally-designed background materials and the creative approach to task intros and stimulus were vital in providing a truly informed view, for what is traditionally seen as a low-interest subject.
The impact has been significant:
Sarah Jenner, Strategic Catchment Planning Lead, United Utilities
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