Call me… maybe
Our service users can now choose to get flood warnings any way they want
The Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales are responsible for providing flood warning information to people at risk of flooding in England and Wales. We have recently addressed one of the biggest pieces of user feedback we get — allowing users to register for flood warnings via the channels they want.
How we warn our users
When flooding is possible or expected to occur, we send notifications to users by text, email and automated telephone call. We had insisted that all users who sign up to the flood warning system require a 24-hour telephone contact to get automated flood warning messages. Notifications via email and text message contacts were considered optional.
Why was it set up this way?
When the national flood warning system was set up over a decade ago, the telephone channel was the most common channel available to the public and the most widely used. It was also the only channel that we could monitor to see if it had been successfully delivered to the user. This helped us understand how many users received our warnings.
Telephone calls were considered an “alerting” channel through the medium of a ringing phone. It was decided that we should insist that all customers have at least one 24-hour telephone contact on that basis.
Why change?
We received frequent negative feedback from users who only wanted to register for email and/or text contacts. Users no longer want to be compelled to register a telephone number and want to be able to choose their own contact method.
Phone messages are inconvenient, I only want text but there is no option for this so I’m opting out altogether.
I want alerts only by text & email — I don’t want the phone ringing all the time! The system does not seem to allow for this.
I wanted to receive texts and emails, but not phone calls. I couldn’t find the option to stop receiving phone calls, so I had to cancel my whole account, which is a shame, because I live close to the river and it would have been useful to receive texts and emails.
There are too many phone calls. I would prefer to be able to sign up just by text or email. It rings me in the middle of the night and I can’t find a way to turn this feature off
Easy to use, great service, has helped us out loads. I wanted to receive just emails and text but had to put a phone number in as well. I don’t really want calls at 3am. Only option was to put a fake number in. Maybe allow people to choose what methods of contact they want?
We were also potentially in breach of the Equality Act 2010 under the indirect discrimination section of the Act. This law bans discrimination and unfair treatment and helps achieve equal opportunities in the workplace and in wider society.
By insisting on a channel that deaf users cannot utilise, we were potentially causing indirect discrimination to that user base. We have had complaints specifically from deaf users regarding our policy on insisting on telephone calls:
I am trying to let you know I need ALL communications to be via TEXT as I am profoundly deaf and cannot take voice calls. I have just received a TEXT (brilliant) letting me know about alerts/warnings being sent via mobiles but please make sure your records show I do NOT respond to voice calls, should there be a need to speak with me.
I am deaf and cannot use the phone for voice calls. All information or Communications should be in text. Please do NOT leave VOICE messages. There should be a method for disabled folk to provide information.
I want remove landline because we are deaf. Only use text message. No phone call.
I must leave a telephone number for calls which I don’t really want because I’m deaf and unable to use the phone. Getting phone calls is a pain for deaf people. Text messages is sufficient for me.
In order to complete a registration, we observed users registering “dummy numbers” in the system to get around the requirement for 24-hour telephone number (for example 02222222222). We still paid for these calls even though they were always unsuccessful. Since April 2017, we tried to contact the dummy number 02222222222 over 65,000 times alone.
Freedom of choice
Based on this feedback, we have been making incremental improvements to our flood warning service so that users are now able to choose exactly how they get alerted for flood warnings.
We have updated our online registration service so that users can now register just for texts or emails if they wish. It’s important to state that users who still want to receive a telephone call can still register for this channel. Users who do not want a telephone call are no longer compelled to add a telephone number to their account.
We have also improved the system so we can now see if text messages and emails have been successfully delivered to registered users via these channels.
Making it happen
Making this change involved working with lots of different stakeholders. Our national policy team needed compelling evidence to approve the change. The Digital Services team pulled together this evidence using user feedback and system data analytics to show the telephone channel was a relatively poor performing alerting channel. For example, during the month of November 2019 (a busy flood month where we sent 489,675 telephone messages to users) only 26% of telephone calls were successfully delivered to a user, 39% went to an answerphone and 35% failed entirely as the number was engaged, was not answered and rang out or was sent to an invalid number.
We also worked with Area teams and our Floodline call centre staff who frequently register users to the service to give them guidance and support. Alongside our system suppliers, we redesigned our online registration service to make it simpler, and easier for our users to register for flood warning information. We have also been identifying and removing dummy numbers from the service so that we can lower overall system resource usage and associated costs during big flood events.
What are we doing next?
We will continue to monitor and address our user feedback so we can provide a service that meets their needs. We will be sharing our findings with the team working on the replacement flood warning systems too.
You can sign up to our free flood warning service on GOV.UK, or by calling Floodline on 0345 988 1188.
Huge thanks to Ben Smedley and Matt Brennon
