Understanding Utilities

FROM THE CLIENT

THE RESEARCH BRIEF 

A water utility provider was looking to develop a deeper understanding of the needs of their customers with specific personal needs and requirements, relating to health conditions, disabilities, cultural differences, and language barriers. 

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THE RECRUIT

The sample was curated representing a diverse range of billpayers with specific needs:

PHYSICAL DISABILITY/HEALTH CONDITIONS Requiring high use of, or high dependency on water (customer list)

NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS Requiring assistance to understand and respond effectively (free-find)

MINORITY RELIGION OR CULTURE Under-represented in related studies (free-find)

VERBAL/AURAL DISABILITY Requiring assistance due to mild to severe disability (free-find/customer list)

VERBAL/AURAL DISABILITY BSL speakers with profound hearing loss or deaf (customer list)

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COLLABORATION & FLEXIBILITY

Collaboration was key to agree on feasibility and approach with our client in anticipation of the likely challenges experienced in similar previous studies. Flexibilities were agreed through a collaborative, one-team approach – a testament to our long-standing and trusting relationship, including:

Increased recruitment timings to three weeks

Online or in-person depth interviews

Budget flexibility for additional support as requested by participants

Provision of client lists with health conditions or disabilities

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“BEAM Fieldwork were excellent at finding solutions to connect us with the people we wanted to talk to and helped us to learn new ways of communicating with under-represented members of the public that we hadn’t considered before.”

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DELIVERING EXCELLENCE

Early efforts fulfilled the recruitment for those with mild to severe verbal/aural disabilities, minority religions, and health conditions/disabilities with high water dependency. However, this also indicated substantial challenges around non-native speakers and those with profound or total hearing loss.

Non-native speakers were inaccessible through traditional participant databases or local RAS-accredited recruiter networks.  A ‘boots on the ground’ approach through local interviewers produced no lead conversions.

Our desk outreach to local religious figures, charity initiatives, food banks, and community pillars connected us with family members in Hindu and Muslim communities willing to support bill-paying family elders to contribute to the study.

Warm leads with profound or total hearing loss were supplied by Portsmouth Water, with email-only contact permissions. Despite the efforts of our in-house team, no recruits were made from this sample.

Desk research revealed significant email communication challenges for recruiting deaf participants due to language and literacy levels, and limited or no exposure to written English.

We made an invaluable partnership with a local business providing BSL and lip-speaking interrupters. With their guidance, and assistance we reimagined our processes. Participant screening and GDPR and consent were gained through BSL-signed video questions and participant responses via WhatsApp, translated into written responses for recording purposes. Collaborating with the interpretation team, we were able to pivot, providing an in-person focus group at a local centre for the deaf. It included four deaf participants, two interpreters providing translation, led by our non-BSL-speaking client.

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THE CONCLUSION

We were thrilled to be shortlisted for the 2024 MRS Oppies ‘Recruitment Excellence’ Award for our work on this project.

READ MORE about our 2024 Oppies celebrations here

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