We partnered with a metering service provider to diagnose the root causes of high abort rates across their installation journeys.
Through a rapid deep dive combining analysis, observation, and process redesign, we identified ~£2m in annual operational savings and clear opportunities to reduce failed jobs by up to 1,000 per month.
Client Challenge
The client was grappling with ~15% of attended metering jobs resulting in an abort, with almost half of these due to property access issues.
This created over 1,500 failed jobs per month, driving more than £2m in annual cost and placing additional later strain on installation capacity. The abort rate also increased repeated job volumes, negatively impacting margins and customer experience.
The client lacked a clear view of why aborts were occurring and needed rapid insight to identify the largest contributing factors.
Our Approach
Using BFY’s rapid diagnostic model, we conducted a deep dive across operational, technical, and behavioural drivers of failure.
Key activities included:
- Analysing over 210,000 historical jobs to identify patterns and root causes
- Conducting side-by-side observations to understand real-world failure modes
- Undertaking regression analysis to quantify the biggest operational drivers
- Creating clear, new process maps to highlight risks, inconsistencies, and control gaps across the existing process
This allowed us to surface key issues such as misreported outcomes, lack of segmentation, variability in engineer processes, and inconsistent customer journeys.
Outcomes
The engagement identified material opportunities to improve performance and reduce cost, including:
- The opportunity for up to 28% reduction in abort rates, equating to a reduction of 1,000 failed jobs per month
- ~£2m annual meter cost savings
- Clear, actionable insights into the customer install journey and operational processes
To explore how BFY can help you quickly deliver operational savings across metering operations, contact Kevin Scott.
