Reducing leaks at Thames Water 💧
Thames Water is the UK's largest water company, with 15 million customers.
As Head of Design, my role was to lead an incredible team of Product Designers, Content Designers and UX Researchers, both permanent team members and agency staff.
As Head of Design, my role was to lead an incredible team of Product Designers, Content Designers and UX Researchers, both permanent team members and agency staff.
In 5 years, I grew the team from one designer to 15 and I led the UX side of the company's biggest digital transformation, including a website redesign and digital rebrand.
This case study details one of my team's larger UX projects, and has more of a leadership angle, than an Individual Contributor angle.
Thames Water supplies 2.6 billion litres of fresh water every day. However, around 25% of this is lost through leaks. These leaks can be inside a customer's property, in the street, or underground. Leaks are not only financially costly, but also have a negative impact to the environment.
Understandably, a key business goal was to save water by finding and fixing leaks faster.
My team were tasked with designing a solution that would help us to achieve this goal.
Image showing types of leaks including leaks from customer pipes, visible leaks and hidden leaks.
Discovery
The UX Researchers collaborated with Content Designers and Product Designers to carry out research with colleagues and customers. Their aim was to understand the current process of finding and fixing leaks.
My role as the Head of Design was to provide strategic direction and remove blockers. For example, when the team struggled to get time with internal stakeholders, I used my existing network and relationships to influence the relevant managers and explain why this work was important, smoothing the way for my team to conduct their research.
Defining the problem
The team's research highlighted multiple pain points.
Firstly, Engineers and Customer Service Agents had different categories for leaks, so what was reported by a customer on the phone may not match how an Engineer would categorise it. This created confusion and multiple reports for the same leak.
The team's research highlighted multiple pain points.
Firstly, Engineers and Customer Service Agents had different categories for leaks, so what was reported by a customer on the phone may not match how an Engineer would categorise it. This created confusion and multiple reports for the same leak.
Secondly, there was no easy way for a customer to report a leak or check if it had already been reported, they would have to call up and would often have to wait a long time to get through.
In summary, there were duplicate and inaccurate reports. This resulted in inefficiencies in Engineer visits, customer frustration and a failure to quickly find and fix leaks.
Designing a solution
The team set about creating a 'to be' end-to-end experience. This included both the digital and physical experience, from the website to the street signage. My role here was to encourage the team to be ambitious. Historically, there was a conservative approach to design, I wanted them to go broad and deep with their ideas!
Image showing the 'to be' leak reporting experience, with no constraints.
Creating and launching our Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
In collaboration with the Product Manager and the Engineers, the Designers created their first MVP, taking into consideration time, technology and process constraints.
Sprints were progressing well until the squad started being held to specific outcomes from senior leadership. Friction started to build between the team members as the PM was trying to meet the board's expectations by slicing the work more thinly and the Designers felt the experience was being compromised because slices were too thin.
Sprints were progressing well until the squad started being held to specific outcomes from senior leadership. Friction started to build between the team members as the PM was trying to meet the board's expectations by slicing the work more thinly and the Designers felt the experience was being compromised because slices were too thin.
My role was to support my team with their design rationale and facilitate conversations at a senior level. This involved attending a weekly board meeting to explain how some of the expectations and deadlines were negatively impacting the experience.
Explaining the impact with data and visuals really helped, as it allowed the board to see it rather than just hear about it. It resulted in priority decisions being made to fix design compromises, which allowed the Designers to feel that they were heard. This allowed the squad to unite, rather than push and pull against each other.
Screenshot showing an explanation of the MVP design compromises.
Further iterations
Around 12 weeks after the first MVP slice, we'd released another 6 slices of the product with some of the design compromises fixed, as shown in the screenshots below.
Around 12 weeks after the first MVP slice, we'd released another 6 slices of the product with some of the design compromises fixed, as shown in the screenshots below.
With these changes going live, we saw the report competition rate increase from 30% to 75%. We also saw a reduction in duplicate reports by approximately 50%.
Seeing the success of the reporting tool, we suggested a change to the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to push people to the website rather than report on the phone.
Once the change to the IVR was made, we saw duplicate reports reduce by 90%. The impact of this was huge in terms of Engineer efficiency. The Operations Team estimated that we'd improved their 'time to fix' from 7 days to 3.5 days.
In 2022, the water lost from leaks was reduced by 11%, a 7% improvement on the previous year. This was a direct result of the reporting and efficiency improvements delivered by the reporting tool.
Reflection
Reflection
Overall, this product was a success. It helped the company achieve its goal of finding and fixing leaks quicker and it also provided an improved customer experience. The main learning was that communication between Designers and PMs is critical, especially when new deadlines are imposed. My role as a leader is to ensure this is happening and to communicate design decisions to senior leadership at every stage of the process, catching any design compromises before they go live.
