Tag: water utility management

Water as a Service

Co-authored by Ashley Bleggi

At a recent conference, we asked utility managers and operators to tell us about their everyday communication challenges. Again and again, we heard that communicating with customers about the value of the service their utility provides was difficult, because too often, customers think about water as a good rather than a service. Customers see water all around them (even falling from the sky!), so it can be difficult for them to fully grasp the water cycle and all that goes into providing clean, safe, and reliable drinking water. To help overcome this challenge, we’ve put together some language to help utilities frame the value of the service that they provide in a simple (yet efficient) way.

Read on to see strategies and example language that your utility can use to communicate with the average customer who may not yet understand what they’re paying for through their water bill: Continue reading

Trends in the Water Industry and Common Strategies to Mitigate and Master an Uncertain Future (Hint: You can’t do it alone!)

Mary Tiger is the Chief Operating Officer of the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina.

A few months ago a group of over 20 utility managers from some of the largest water utilities in the country convened in Denver, Colorado to discuss strategies that are working (and not working) to mitigate and master issues facing their individual utilities. Beyond having size in common, it was a diverse group, representing a spectrum of ownership and service models, as well as geographical and service characteristics.  As such, the impact of common trends in the industry (as projected in the Water Research Foundation report “Forecasting the Future: Progress, Change, and Predictions for the Water Sector”) varied greatly between them.   Continue reading