Utilities market research - including energy market research and water market research – is a sector in which DJS Research has vast experience. We have worked with numerous regulatory bodies, water and energy companies and other utilities providers and service clients, some of which are pictured below, to deliver a range of qualitative and quantitative research projects utilising the full array of research techniques. We work for clients on either an ad-hoc or tracking basis, and currently provide customer service research on a daily basis for one of the world’s largest energy retailers.

We have experience of a wide array of research projects relating to utilities including:

Utilities Market Research

Over the years our utilities team has supported numerous water companies through 4 price reviews and business as usual. We are continuously working with our clients to ensure our research is relevant, robust and innovative. Our experience spans Household and Non Household customers and includes:

Business Planning
Our experience covers everything from uncovering customer priorities, developing performance measures, understanding ODIs, Willingness to Pay (WtP) and acceptability and affordability research. Not only do we support on full business plans, we also have extensive experience of supporting the development and acceptability of Water Resource Management Plans (company and regional) and Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans.

Customer Vulnerability and Affordability
We have extensive experience of engaging with customers with health and/or financial vulnerabilities, the digitally disengaged and those in rural areas. This experience transcends not only the water and energy sectors, but also other sectors including healthcare, where we have years of experience of speaking to patients and medical staff. This wider experience results in a richer, more rounded research project for our clients. Projects in this area have included exploring customer needs and experiences, awareness and performance of financial support packages and priority services registers and acceptance and willingness to pay towards social tariffs, which we have conducted for 12+ water companies. Our affordability report for CCW can be found in the public domain.

Changing Customer Behaviour
When asked, consumers have little trouble offering their self-declared reasons for why they will or they will not use less water, save more energy, flush nothing but the 3P’s…  the conscious part of our brain however, has not evolved to be aware of many of the innate influences driving our actions. Through behavioural deep dives using robust frameworks (COM-B, Transtheoretical Model etc) we can help you understand how you can change your consumers’ behaviour. Combined with big dollops of creative thinking designed to break free from the shackles of industry norms, we can design behavioural interventions backed up by robust evaluation to provide proof of behaviour change and impact. You can read more about as well as contact our behavioural science team here.

Brand and Reputation
We conduct brand tracking across a realm of sectors including utilities. We have experience of developing trackers from scratch as well as inheriting and developing existing trackers (we don’t have an off the shelf brand package, each project is bespoke). Key to the success of our trackers is the on-boarding of internal stakeholders and agree from our range of outputs how the results will be disseminated.

Community Engagement
We are being asked more and more to conduct community engagement. This may be in areas earmarked for resilience programmes, communications campaigns or financial support. We have conducted ethnographic, qualitative and quantitative studies in these areas and our research has helped target comms ranging from customer consultations, social media campaigns, door drops and working partnerships.

Working side by side with members of the local community, our research always benefits from local knowledge and nuance; recent examples have included the recruitment of cohorts of Community Champions to ensure resources are being targeted in the most effective way to having local Imams disseminate sewer misuse messages at local mosques.

Environmental Research
More and more of our utilities research explores solutions which can enhance the environment. These have included Bioresources, Sustainable Drainage Solutions, catchment management and water efficiency. We have explored some of these solutions in great depth with customers using deliberative research. We have also supported water companies with their climate change adaptation plans. Find out more about our Climate Change & the Environment Market Research experience.

Our researchers are experienced in qualitative research (traditional focus groups, online focus groups, deliberative research, in depth interviews, teledepths) and quantitative research (online, face to face, CATI) using a range of statistical methods (stated preference – Max Diff, Contingent Valuation, Conjoint), segmentation, TURF Analysis, Van Westendorp and regression and correlation).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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