CONSUMER OUTREACH RESOURCES

• Digital CX: How Utilities Can Exceed Customer Expectations

  Most people don’t expect a good digital customer experience from their utility providers. While leading retailers, insurers, and banks have all put serious resources into digital customer experience (CX) and reaped the rewards, utilities have been slower off the mark. 

• Water Industry Responds To Proposed LCR Revisions

  With more than 50,000 community water systems (CWS) in the U.S., it is amazing that only 285 individuals had logged public comments on the U.S. EPA’s proposed Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) Revisions by the February 12, 2020 deadline. Yet, what those respondents had to say could have a big impact on how we deal with lead in drinking water moving forward. Here is a cross-section of the industry’s response.

• LCR Revisions: Speak Now, Or Forever Hold Your Peace

  Are you completely ready to implement the scores of changes in the U.S. EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR), exactly as proposed? If not, act quickly, because time to register constructive feedback before the February 12^th deadline is running out. Less than three weeks before the end of the comment period, the EPA’s webpage for feedback displayed only 131 public submissions regarding the proposed regulations.

• 2020 Vision For Water: Better Days Ahead

  The past year was another trying one for the water industry. With the long tail of the Flint lead crisis carrying into 2019 (and 2020, with Lead and Copper Rule revisions still pending), even more contamination headlines were made with the discovery of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — dubbed “forever chemicals” — in various hotspots across the nation. It even spawned a big-budget movie at year’s end. But 2020, I trust, will be different.

• Serious Games: Transforming Customer Engagement And Professional Training In The Water Sector

  If you thought gaming was just for kids and couch potatoes, serious gaming may change your perspective — and how you manage your utility.

• Preparing To Tackle The Hydra Of LCR Revisions

  As a journalist serving the water industry — but not yet a seasoned technical veteran — I attended a recent Lead In Drinking Water Forum sponsored by AWWA NJ to learn about the challenges of complying with the proposed Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR). What I heard impressed upon me the technical, administrative, and logistical challenges of delivering safe, lead-free drinking water all the way to user taps. Here are my takeaways.

• WWEMA Window: I Am Thankful For Water

  Having recently celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday, it is an opportune time to step back, take a deep breath, and consider all that we have to be thankful for. Whether it is family, friends, health, pets, or opportunities, each of us has something for which we are grateful.

• Utilities Can Use Digital Communication To Fix A Fractured Customer Experience: Here’s How

  For much of their history, utilities haven’t had to pay too much attention to customer experience (CX). The focus in many areas has tended to be on technologies that supported infrastructure and reduced operational costs.

• Water-Sharing Experiment Suggests People Put Their Own Survival First

  There’s been talk lately about empathy, its components and its general decline. A decline in empathy concerns me as an assistant professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environment and Sustainability: I study how people cope with water problems or learn to share scarce resources, like water, gas, oil, and energy.

• 8 Ways To Make Utility-Customer Communication Seamless Across Digital Channels

  If a water utility is going to use digital communication to enhance the customer experience, it needs to ensure that it does so as seamlessly as possible.