ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

Anglian Water redefines customer payments through digital innovation

Anglian Water, the largest water and water recycling company in England and Wales by geographic area, serves nearly seven million customers. With an increasing number of customers preferring digital payment methods, the company recognized the need to modernize its payment system to meet customer expectations.

Based on research that showed digital wallet options improve customer satisfaction substantially, Anglian Water decided to enable the use of Apple Pay and Google Pay when making payments. By doing so, the company would make paying bills faster, easier, and more secure, allowing customers to complete the process in just two clicks. In this way, Anglian Water would make the payment process more customer-friendly and position itself as a leader in digital innovation within the utilities sector.

Launching a streamlined digital payment experience

To achieve this goal, Anglian Water partnered with ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½, forming a team that could carefully plan and implement the new digital wallet payment options. Operating as a single, unified team, the partners established an iterative delivery approach that ensured rigorous testing and feedback could guide development by quickly identifying technical issues to be fixed.

Over a six-month period, Anglian Water and ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ used a combination of structured planning and adaptive methods to build a secure and flexible eCommerce Payment application. Recognizing a need for additional knowledge, the project team underwent additional training that would enable more effective end-to-end ownership of the project and engagement with third parties.

Throughout this project, the partners followed a microservices architecture hosted on the Azure Platform as a Service. This payment application is comprised of API Manager, Function Apps, MVC Web App, Orchestrator Function App, Event Grid, Logic App, and Azure SQL, all of which support Apple Pay and Google Pay. These new payment options were designed to work across all devices and were compatible with both Android and iOS platforms.

Reaping the benefits and setting future goals

Since the launch of the new payment options in October 2023, Anglian Water has seen a significant shift in customer behavior. Quicker, easier payment processes improved customer satisfaction, resulting in 35 percent of payments now being made through digital wallets instead of traditional debit and credit cards. The project not only improved the overall payment experience but also reinforced Anglian Water’s position as an industry digital innovation leader.

Looking ahead, Anglian Water is committed to continuing its digital transformation. The company plans to explore more digital services that can further enhance customer satisfaction, while its ongoing partnership with ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ will remain central to driving future innovations. As Anglian Water expands its digital offerings and streamlines operations, the focus will remain on delivering the best possible service to its customers, ensuring that they stay at the heart of every decision.