Domestic energy data and marketing

Customer relationships are crucial. The more you know about your consumers, the better able you are to serve their needs. How can you meet your ability to pay obligations and understand  customers who may be struggling with bills unless you have a lens on all of their other credit commitments? If you’re willing to share your data with a reputable credit reference agency like Experian, you’ll gain access to data from other sources to add to your own.

The key benefit of sharing data is that you can use those new sources to improve the quality of the data you own. This can be achieved with a full data audit using a service such as that provided by Experian’s data quality solutions. This combs through your data to fill in missing information, correct errors and provide updates where necessary, ensuring you have a full – and accurate – picture of your electric and gas customers.

Once your data has been audited, how do you bring it together into a single, holistic view that can be accessed across your entire organisation? The answer lies with a solution like Experian’s Single Customer View. The benefits of a SCV are many, not least when it comes to assessing a customer’s current financial situation with regards to recovering unpaid debts.

Data from a reputable credit bureau such as Experian can be used at the point of application to determine their economic circumstances and ability to pay. Armed with this insight, you’ll be better able to determine whether it may be appropriate to request a security deposit or recommend the customer uses a prepayment meter.

Ofgem regulations require you to understand your customers’ ability to pay, including when calculating debt repayments. The key to unlocking this insight lies in utilising Open Banking and other shared data. For example, a tool like Experian’s Affordability Passport allows indebted households to proactively share their bank account transactions with you, which in turn helps you to formulate a repayment plan that’s affordable and sustainable.

The rise in energy prices coupled with income shocks has meant more households may be in – or at risk of being in – fuel poverty. An up-to-date understanding of your customers through Delphi for Customer Management on a regular basis and an understanding of their affordability is crucial to help you recognise whether they’re at risk of fuel or water poverty. Another good use of Open Banking data is to proactively monitor customers’ changing financial circumstances for potential signs of distress. These triggers can be used to explore ways of offering help through various government schemes.

Monitoring customer risk requires access to products and solutions that are both accessible and can be tailored to both you and your consumers’ needs. If you partner with a CRA such as Experian, you get more than just access to its rich data sources; you’ll also be able to leverage those assets and incorporate insights from shared data into your own customer records with the help of experienced specialists alongside tools like PowerCurve and Delphi.

The simplest way to avoid individuals or households falling too far into debt is – of course – to spot problems as they occur. Look for solutions which offer timely alerts for customers who may be starting to struggle with meeting payments. One such tool is Experian’s Bureau Insights, which allows you to set fortnightly triggers to identify those in possible financial distress.

Once you’ve identified those in trouble, you’ll want to identify the cause of their problems and take appropriate action. Have they simply forgotten to make a repayment, or do they need more direct aid, such as exploring a new repayment plan or even switching to a prepayment meter? A tool like Experian’s PowerCurve Collections provides helpful options including a discrete online self-service portal for repayments.

Should a customer fall further behind with their payments and a collections process is required, you’ll want to know whether an expensive litigation process will be cost-effective in helping to recover some or all of that debt. Experian has tools to help you determine whether this will be successful, plus help reduce the cost of collections overall.

If customers have vanished, leaving a huge debt in their wake, you’ll want to understand the occupation status of the property in question and, if so, find out where they’ve gone in order to pursue the unpaid debt. Look for solutions such as Experian’s SuperTrace, which cross-reference data from multiple sources to track individuals to their new address.

Ofgem’s Vulnerability Strategy 2025 identifies “improving identification of vulnerability and smart use of data” as one of its five key themes. The data you need comes from shared sources, which can be accessed via a reputable credit reference agency such as Experian. This helps verify user identities and fill in information gaps to reveal any who may fall into a potentially vulnerable category.

Identifying those who may benefit from being on the Priority Services Register is a lot harder when that information may be recorded in one set of customer records but missing from others. The solution lies in bringing all your records together to provide a single, holistic view of each consumer using a tool like PowerCurve Customer Management. That way, your customers’ PSR status is visible to everyone in your organisation.

A good customer management platform doesn’t simply help ensure the most vulnerable are given appropriate support when they need it, it also helps ensure your customer dealings remain fair and compliant at all times. PowerCurve’s single customer view paints a complete picture of your consumer so you can personalise your experience to the benefit of both parties.

With increasing numbers of customers still struggling with financial shock, being able to proactively spot those at risk of falling behind on their payments is crucial in helping minimise unpaid bills and mounting debts. Tools like Experian’s Arrears Foresight provide you with a granular view of your portfolio to help you identify those most at risk, while Delphi for Customer Management helps you manage that risk more effectively.

Whichever analytics platform you choose, make sure it offers the tools you need to build, test and monitor forecasting models you can rely on. For example, Experian’s Ascend Intelligence Services offers two handy components: Pulse provides real-time and proactive monitoring of your current models, while Challenger helps you to build, test and deploy new ones.

Getting a fix on the current economic situation is tough thanks to the continued fallout from the pandemic. That’s why when developing new prediction models, it’s important you can factor in external influences such as economic indicators. Challenger draws from Experian’s wide range of data assets to provide you with overlays you can use to better understand the risk in your portfolio.

Evolving IFRS9 challenges now require you to do more than simply build and adopt an IFRS9 Expected Credit Loss framework. You must now demonstrate how the framework can be both productionised and optimised to power more profitable decision-making. Look for a solution such as Experian’s IFRS9 module, which helps you accelerate, scale and optimise your credit risk modelling and estimation process in line with current regulations.