The ‘Your Water’ online community is managed and maintained by an independent research agency called Human8. They devise the research activities and distribute the rewards. This allows customers to share their views without fear of bias.
As part of the Your Water online community, you’ll be invited to take part in surveys, quick polls and discussions. All activities are optional – meaning you can dip in and out as it suits you. The more feedback you give, the more rewards you will be eligible for and you'll have a greater say in our future decision making.
By engaging with our customers through the community, we are able to base major decisions not on what we think customers might want, but on what you tell us is important to you.
Register below to gain your first entry into our monthly prize draw and see for yourself what the Your Water community is all about.
How am I rewarded for taking part?
There are regular prize draws and incentives to thank you for your time and effort. For every qualifying activity you complete, you will be entered into our monthly prize draw. When you receive an email invitation, it will tell you if the activity qualifies you for an entry into our prize draw.
Rewards come in the form of an electronic voucher, redeemable from Tremendous Rewards, they have a wide variety of online retailers you can choose from.
What our members say
I like that I feel like the community actually get a chance to have some input in to things. It’s nice to feel like our point of view is taken into consideration. - Sue, Barnsley
I particularly like the more detailed tasks, e.g. on YW's future plans. This allows members to freely provide their opinion and feedback. I hope this helps the company. - Margaret, North Ferriby
It is a very good tool to give your opinion on matters which affect users in the community and improve the service on offer - Phil, Dewsbury
I like that I am being asked about my opinions and that there is a chance to be rewarded for doing so. - Paul, Huddersfield
What impact have members had?
The following case studies provide a snapshot of different ways the community has supported and made a real impact in our business.
Case study 1: Shaping our Customer Campaigns
Over the past couple of years, we’ve had lots of conversations with members around how they use water. Their feedback has informed a range of customer communication campaigns aimed at encouraging the people of Yorkshire to use water more efficiently. It’s great taking campaigns back to community members to review, when they have directly fed into them from the get go!
We now have a better understanding of our customers attitudes and behaviours when it comes to saving water. These conversations have shaped our discussions with the Environment Agency, where we demonstrated that hosepipe bans are not as effective as targeted customer communication during long periods of warm weather. As a result, we have been able to avoid a hosepipe ban that customers told us they didn't want, and instead focussed on sharing tips on sustainable use and requesting that customers work with us to save water.
“Based on the feedback from the online community we were able to land a campaign that truly spoke to the residents of Yorkshire and encouraged a much greater uplift in water efficient behaviours, meaning that we could continue to supply the region even in prolonged periods of dry weather”
Alison Hipkin, Campaigns Advisor
Case study 2: Co-developing a new customer bill
We invited customers from the Your Water Community to support our Billing team, by co-creating a new and improved bill design.
Over the course of a year, we asked customers like you to share their opinions on the design of the water bills we send to customers. They told us what they liked and disliked about our current bill design, and even compared our bill design against other companies. We listened to their feedback and created a new and improved bill design for customers, resulting in a 17% reduction in customer billing complaints compared to the previous year.
“The feedback we received from Your Water members really supported and informed our design workshops, as we look to keep customers’ needs at the heart of what we are trying to achieve. Without members feedback, we would not be able to run the bill redesign project. It has given us confidence to make some tough decisions on requirements and release of bills”
Navjit Notay, Implementation Manager at Loop
Case study 3: Regulatory Reporting and Publications
Every year, we are required to submit an Annual Performance Report (APR) to our regulator, Ofwat. Our APR provides information about how we are doing in delivering against company targets which we agreed with customers for the period 2015 to 2020.
Having initially spoken to customers on the Your Water Community about our APR publications in 2017, it was clear that previous versions of the APR were too lengthy, full of industry jargon and presented in a complex way customers found difficult to understand. Since 2017, using community feedback, our APR has had a significant overhaul. Our APR document is now easy for our customers to read and understand and has been endorsed by our independent forum the Yorkshire Forum for Water Customers and Consumer Council for Water. As a result of this guidance from our customers, we have also achieved the Plain English Campaign Crystal Mark for our APR and other company documents we publish. We can’t thank our Your Water Customers enough for their support and guidance.
“The online community has been pivotal to Yorkshire Water gaining important feedback on our range of publications. It has allowed us to improve our publications making them more suited to our customers and gaining the Plain English Crystal Mark”
Ez Chowdhury, Senior Regulatory Project Manager