United Utilities

A sector first in the water industry with a native mobile app which makes life easier for both customers and the business.

ProductUnited Utilities app

HQWarrington, UK

SectorUtilities

Company size7 million customers

Client since2017

Services

UX design

Mobile app development

Transformation

Online ordering/payments

UI design

Loyalty

Customer experience

Key achievements

The first native mobile app for a water supplier
The app has facilitated £7.5 million in bill payments
Most actively used payment channel handling 55,000 - 70,000 payments a month
29% growth in the active digital customer base
10% reduction in internal costs through self-serve payments

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What you need to know

United Utilities is one of the UK's largest privately listed water companies and had two key problems to solve. Firstly, improve customer experience with greater access to billing information and clearer communication, and secondly create a tool which could be used by the internal operations team to assess customer satisfaction and track reports of water leaks.

As the first native mobile app for the water supply industry, Apadmi was breaking new ground in terms of functionality and user expectations for the sector. In-depth profiling of United Utilities customers and the resulting UX work led to an app which was intensely focused on improving all use cases. From submitting meter readings in the dark (with the help of an automatic torch) to reporting a leak, paying bills or getting in touch with customer services.

Our innovative “Report a Leak” function adds context to issues, ensuring our team deals with leaks based on their severity, but it also deepens our customer engagement – a critical part of any business. We’re thrilled with the uptake of the United Utilities Mobile App so far – which has contributed to increasing our digital customer base by 146,000 customers.

Denise Maskew Customer Digital Manager, United Utilities

How we moved the market

United Utilities' initial goal was to hit 30,000 users in the first year after launching the app. This was achieved only 10 months after launch. It has now been downloaded more than 100,000 times and has facilitated £7.5 million in bill payments and reduced the volume of calls to customer services. The cost per billing letter to customers for United Utilities is 0.58p, so bringing consumers to the app to view bills digitally has helped reduce this expense for the business on a large scale.

The "Report a Leak" feature enabled users to register leaks quickly, submit images and automatically add their exact location, saving time, money and water. The app has become a central pillar of United Utilities’ ongoing digital transformation strategy.