Communication is Critical for Water Utilities
As a utility leader, you might think you are in the water business, but actually, you are in the relationship business. Don’t get me wrong. Of course you are in water, as you buy and sell it, but the thing that has the most influence over your success, more than engineering, operations and finance, are your relationships with your stakeholders.
Trusted relationships with customers, elected boards, neighboring utilities, community partners, contractors and just about everyone has more bearing on your ability to invest in and maintain a sustainable, resilient system than anything else you have or do.
Trust is elusive for many utilities because it requires open, transparent communications and that’s scary or difficult for many. In fact, many water utility leaders see communications only as a lever to pull when a main breaks, a boil water advisory is issued or a rate increase is imminent. Treating communications like it’s an optional public relations exercise is a mistake. Consistent, transparent communication is not a nice-to-have; it is an essential management function.
This is a dramatic shift in thinking for the leader who has relished their utility’s role as a silent service provider. But communications is more vital now than ever, especially as trust in institutions has been steadily declining for decades. Especially now that information sources have become democratized by social media and anyone with a keyboard and WiFi can determine what story gets told about any topic. Communications is critical especially now that AI enables misinformation and disinformation to display undetectable next to truth, with consumers left to wonder which is real.
Proactive communication is the best antidote to this scourge of declining trust and the rise of misinformation.
It allows utilities to define their own story. It demonstrates competence, accountability and a genuine commitment to public health. And it builds long-term, trusted relationships.
Utility leaders often lament that they wished they had a silver bullet for getting rate increases passed. Open, honest, transparent communications is that silver bullet. There is tons of research in the water sector that has consistently shown a strong correlation between trust, customer satisfaction and the perceived value of water services with high amounts of consistent communication. People won’t willingly pay more for something they don’t understand.
If a customer’s only interaction with their water provider is a monthly bill, a rate increase feels like an unjustified penalty. Conversely, when a utility consistently communicates about its services, this belief changes.
By highlighting the complex engineering required to treat and deliver safe water, showcasing the dedication of local staff and explaining the pressing need to upgrade failing pipes, customers begin to see the connection between their payments and their quality of life. Communication builds that understanding, transforming their perception of a water bill from an obligatory tax into a necessary community investment.
Regular communications also serve as a deposit into the bank of customer trust because it earns the utility the benefit of the doubt in an emergency. Whether a major transmission line failure or an unexpected contaminant, the trust established when things are calm pays dividends in crisis. Without it, customers hearing from you for the first time in crisis will be skeptical. They may question your competence.
But, with a track record of steady, honest communication, customers will recognize your organization as a reliable source of truth.
They’ll already know that infrastructure is complex and that occasional failures are inevitable, rather than the result of mismanagement. Because trust exists, customers will believe that your utility is working diligently to resolve the issue because that is the behavior leadership has consistently demonstrated.
To harness the value of communications, utility leaders must treat communications as a core business function. This means integrating communication professionals into the executive team, funding public outreach with the same seriousness and vigor as engineering projects and training operational staff to recognize and tell good stories.
Providing water is easy. But raising rates, obtaining consensus on a key project and changing policies are all hard. Building trusted relationships with your key stakeholders makes all these things easier. Consistent, transparent communications is how you build them.
By Samantha Villegas APR, Fellow PRSA. She is a Principal Consultant and a member of Raftelis’ Strategic Communications Practice. She can be reached at svillegas@raftelis.com
This column is featured in the September/October issue of American Infrastructure. Read the print version here.
