Ofwat's PR24 makes it clear that 'financial prudence, regulatory oversight and enhanced customer service must go hand in hand' and that 'innovation will be key.'

In addition, water is set to be measured against the wider utility sector despite vastly different levels of investment in modern technology. 

Fortunately, state-of-the-art collections software can help you:
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Gain better insight into your debt portfolio
Maximise automation, and
Control costs
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By improving your understanding of customer circumstances, you can achieve faster payments, more sustainable arrangements and better take-up of social tariffs.

Here are the essential steps that will help you meet the challenging targets Ofwat has set out:

Make the move to real-time collections

Eliminating the "Data Gap" in Service Delivery

‍Real-time capability is not a luxury; it is the infrastructure required to meet Ofwat’s service standards. By enabling zero-latency updates, you ensure every interaction is based on the customer’s actual, current situation.

• The compliance win: Respond instantly to signs of financial distress, preventing foreseeable harm.
• The efficiency win: Stop wasting budget on chase communications for bills that were paid an hour ago.
• The social tariff win: Identify eligible customers in the moment, ensuring support reaches those who need it most before debt spirals.

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Unified communications: Ending channel chaos

One story, every channel
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‍Ofwat demands that customers have a genuine choice in how they communicate. However, choice without coordination creates risk. If a customer’s digital journey doesn't match their phone conversation, trust is lost, and complaints rise.

• The unified hub: By centralising interactions into a single system, you ensure a "digital-first" journey feels as empathetic and informed as a human one.
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• Frictionless support: When agents see the full history of SMS, email, and portal clicks instantly, the customer never has to repeat their story – a core requirement of the Consumer Duty mindset.

Turning raw data into actionable intelligence

Breaking free from legacy silos

‍You cannot deliver a step-change in performance if your data is locked in disjointed systems. To meet PR24's innovation mandate, you need a flexible data structure that can:

• Ingest: Absorb data from internal billing and external credit or vulnerability sets at speed.
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• Adapt: Handle changing data formats without months of IT development.
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• Predict: Use real-time behaviour to refine strategies, moving from one-size-fits-all to truly personalised repayment plans.

Bulletproof compliance via event sourcing

Making audits painless and truth unchangeable

‍Regulatory scrutiny is intensifying. Proving you have treated a customer fairly shouldn't require a weeks-long manual data exercise.

Modern platforms use Event Sourcing, which creates an unbreakable, chronological chain of evidence for every action taken on an account.

• The single source of truth: Prove exactly who did what, when, and why.
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• The continuous audit: When the regulator asks for evidence of social tariff promotion or vulnerability support, the answer is available in seconds, not days.

Empowering a can-do team culture

Unleashing Your Internal Experts

Legacy systems stifle innovation. When a simple strategy change takes six months of IT tickets, your best people get demoralised.

A modern system turns your team from administrators into innovators.

By giving your collections specialists the tools to configure strategies and test new approaches in a "no-code" environment, you transform your department from a cost centre into a hub of operational excellence

The future is now: adapting to the new benchmark

With Ofwat mandating a significant increase in support for vulnerable customers, the pressure on water collections is at an all-time high.

The sector is at a crossroads: continue with the status quo and risk regulatory failure, or adopt the cloud-native, real-time tools that make PR24's targets achievable. The future belongs to the water companies that realise the best customer outcome is also the best commercial outcome.