Abort rates have long been a challenge across the metering industry, but the overall cost often receives less attention. Our analysis suggests the annual cost of aborted metering activity could be costing ~£100m per year.
That figure is based on an estimated 23% abort rate and an average cost of £100 per aborted job, equating to almost one million failed visits across the sector annually.
So how can the industry get better data about metering and how can organisations improve the success rates?
We posed that question to senior leaders at our roundtable recently and will continue the conversation during our metering webinar on 24 June. Our metering experts will also share their insights. To give a flavour of the discussion and show what’s possible, here’s a recent example and some things to try for yourself.
~£1.8m in annual operational savings from aborted jobs in five days
In just five days, we helped one of our clients identify ~£1.8m in annual operational savings from aborted jobs. We analysed >210k jobs to highlight process failures, risks and opportunities.
We identified key contributing factors such as:
- Up to 15% of job outcomes were misreported.
- Poor segmentation or tailored journeys.
- ~13% of jobs failed for the same reason.
- Variable supplier input and engineer processes.
- Inconsistent customer journey, resulting in critical information being poor or missing.
Working side by side with our client, we agreed on key improvement areas and created new process maps to capitalise on the opportunities.
Checklist to reduce abort rates for commercial success
To reduce your own organisation’s abort rates, start by answering these questions:
Performance data
- Is your performance data measuring enough? Track the whole journey from the start to successful smart metering operation, not just volume. Record all aborted job types, revisits, success, and remediation rates.
- Can your resolution team track each part of the journey? Can they see causes of aborts, customer engagement history, property risk factors and previous aborts?
- Is your data accurate and aligned across your teams? For example, does your scheduling team have to pick from conflicting information or fill in the gaps?
- Do you have connected KPIs? Do they cover install success, commissioning failures, smart mode activation, connectivity, and installer performance?
- Are senior leaders reviewing this data regularly and leveraging the insights to make strategic operational decisions?
Risk management
- Do your scheduling and pre-qualification policies measure risk?
- Are high-risk properties properly assessed before appointments?
- Are pre-visit checks, customer communication and contingency planning helping or hindering success?
Workforce deployment
- Is your workforce structured, flexible and skilled enough to handle complex and high volumes of installations?
- Have you got sound contingency plans for regional gaps or spikes in demand?
Mitigation processes
- Do you have robust rebooking, remediation and maintenance processes?
- When jobs fail, are they rebooked promptly and prioritised?
- Do you record the root causes of aborts?
- Do you review and address common abort causes to prevent repeated failures?
- How effectively are you monitoring long-term smart mode sustainment?
GSOP compliance and obligations
- Do you have a clear and logical strategy to maintain meters in smart mode across their lifecycle?
- How are you plotting success against your strategy and do you have mitigation plans in place?
- Are your systems, processes and workforce ready to meet regulatory enforcement, compensation and reporting obligations?
While aborted job reduction remains an important performance lever, it's only one part of the conversation. During our webinar on 24 June, we'll also explore whether metering has become a board-level commercial issue, how supplier-provider operating models may need to evolve, and what could differentiate the highest-performing organisations as the market moves beyond the smart rollout.
In the meantime, if you'd like to discuss your own metering challenges and opportunities, please get in touch with our metering team.
Sources used:
- DESNZ Smart Meter Statistics
- Smart DCC operational statistics
- ElectraLink RTS replacement reporting
- Ofgem smart metering performance reporting
- Publicly available metering service charge schedules
- BFY metering project experience and industry benchmarking
