Digital Fans for Life 2: Are we truly listening?
How might we use digital tools, data, and emerging technologies to strengthen how customer voices inform the next Unrivalled Customer Experience Strategy, in ways that are efficient, robust, and genuinely inclusive?
Northumbrian Water Group is evolving its Unrivalled Customer Experience Strategy, keeping customer voices at the centre. This sprint explores how digital tools, data, and emerging technologies can strengthen customer insight alongside direct engagement, helping us gather and use feedback in ways that are timely, scalable, inclusive, and trusted. It also supports our commitment to Ofwat’s Condition G, which requires us to communicate proactively, supportively, and continuously improve how we serve customers.
Running in parallel to the Fans for Life sprint, this digital‑focused sprint will explore how digital innovation can support and evolve customer experience strategy development. Together, we will:
- Explore how digital tools can better capture customer views, sentiment, and lived experience to guide decisions
- Review what has already been done within NWG and beyond, building on existing insight and platforms. How do we use the data to its full potential.
- Identify opportunities to complement face‑to‑face engagement with digital approaches
- Examine how technology can support efficient, inclusive, and compliant customer insight
- Shape digital principles and opportunities that feed directly into the next Customer Experience Strategy
- How do we involve customers in our decision making in a productive, inclusive and engaging way
Participants will collaborate through a series of focused, exploratory sessions, including:
- Shared understanding of the current Unrivalled Customer Experience Strategy and existing insight
- Exploration of our current tools such as voice‑of‑the‑customer platforms and sentiment analysis
- Opportunity to listen to subject matter experts on how they have used the customer voice to inform decisions
- Collaborate with others to explore ideas and then prioritise which ones we would like to take forward
- Sense‑check ideas with customer from the parallel Fans for Life sprint
By the end of the sprint, we aim to deliver:
- A review of the solutions and how we can optimise what we already have
- A clear view of how digital tools can enhance customer insight and engagement
- Principles for using digital approaches in a way that is trusted, engaging and robust
- Early ideas or concepts to inform the digital elements of the next Customer Experience Strategy
- Strong alignment between digital insight and in‑person customer engagement
NWG colleagues from Customer, Operations, Communications, Data/Insight teams, and those involved in research and communication activity.
Representatives from existing providers and those who can offer new insight and solutions. External experts in research and insight. Potentially, counterparts from other sectors (Banking, Housing, Transport) to share learnings. Anyone interested in learning—and shaping—how the latest techniques of AI, data science and Customer Experience can be used in more ambitious ways.
Any questions: Ian Bambrough: ian.bambrough@nwl.co.uk or Daisy Lake: Daisy.Lake@nwl.co.uk
