At the time of writing, climate emergencies have been declared by 74% of UK councils. That’s around 230 councils in total. By declaring a Climate Emergency the councils have acknowledged that they need to act on the causes and impacts of climate change. When it comes to making change, political commitment is often the hardest part, so this is a major leap forward for the UK.
We also know that people within the UK are keen to take action and help reduce their impact on the climate crisis. According to a 2019 survey of UK residents conducted by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as part of its Energy and Climate Public Attitudes Tracker, 76% expressed concern about climate change. Conversely, only 17% of those surveyed expressed little concern – with just 6% of those expressing absolutely no concerns at all.
In tracking data from the polling company YouGov that began in 2010, the environment is now cited as the third most pressing issue facing the nation. The environment was ranked after Brexit and public health, but is ahead of the economy, crime and immigration when it comes to cause for national concern.
As human beings, there is a growing recognition that we’ve wasted enough time and failed to act accordingly to switch our model of life to a more sustainable lifestyle. However, it’s clear that people don’t necessarily understand what they need to do to enable a Net Zero future, or how to measure the effort required.
Lessons from the pandemic
The global pandemic has taught the world many invaluable lessons, but for utilities, the biggest take-away should be that it has revealed that, as a race, we’re capable of rapidly changing our ways and lifestyles, to a colossal extent. When the pandemic was acknowledged in the UK and the first lockdown was announced, businesses were forced to close, working from home immediately became enforced and new ways of working and living were quickly adopted.
So, when it comes to asking customers to make lifestyle changes in order to reduce their water and energy consumption, for the good of the planet, what are we waiting for? We know that people are hugely receptive to the idea and we know that as a race, we’re hugely adaptable. Now is the time for energy and water businesses to take action and empower their customers to make sustainable changes. The journey towards Net Zero requires every expertise available, and Advizzo has solutions to help.
Lower cost to serve – Advizzo’s SaaS customer engagement solution is both faster and cheaper to run than traditional solutions and building in-house – this enables both increased agility and reductions in cost to serve. We share a little more about this in our Build Versus Buy blog. Why not invest resources into proven customer-led solutions instead?
Proven sustainable behavior change – Advizzo’s widgets have delivered proven water and energy savings with water and energy companies around the globe. Check out our case study describing our work with Anglian Water where we reduced water consumption by 18,500 litres per household, per day. We all know behavior change is hard, but our solutions have been designed with expertise from world’s leading behavioral scientists so customers can take the right step at the right time to get to Net Zero
Deliver a dynamic customer experience – Customers’ expectations are high these days. The customer experience has become more important and valuable to a customer than the actual service being provided. A good experience will increase customer and brand loyalty. Our SaaS solutions are designed with this in mind. We deliver a personalized, unique experience for each customer – based on their individual consumption habits and behaviors. Utilities that embrace and improve their customer experience (CX) today, will retain customers, develop relationships and enjoy the additional benefits of being in prime position to capitalize on upsell and cross-sell opportunities for growth.
Is your organisation ready to take the lead and deliver smarter customer experiences? Are you ready to address customer concerns about climate change? Do you want to capitalize on the good will that this will generate? The time to step up is now. Let’s have a chat and make a plan to deliver results this year.