Customer experience (CX) is often equated with personalisation and speed. Companies strive to collect more and more data to anticipate needs and streamline interactions. But what happens when that pursuit of convenience clashes with the fundamental need for security and safety? For Yarra Valley Water (YVW) this question is at the heart of its CX strategy.
YVW found a way to balance both with their ‘Privacy Check Pop-Up’ initiative, which won the Employee Experience Initiative of the Year at the 2025 Auscontact Excellence (Vic/Tas) awards. This pop-up helps contact centre staff securely verify customer identities, making their jobs easier and less stressful while keeping customer information safe.
Retail Services is the customer operations arm of the organisation with a team of 230 people. Lisa Anelli, General Manager Retail Services, says, “We’re organised across four divisions: Customer Care, Billing and Collection, Development Services, and a dedicated Family and Domestic Violence team. This structure allows us to tackle the full spectrum of customer interactions, from day-to-day enquiries to life-critical situations”.
“Our win validates our strategy, which is focused on adapting to constantly changing customer expectations. Customers rightly expect us to protect their data and make their interactions with us simple and safe. The Privacy Check Pop-Up helps our staff do exactly that — by giving them clear guidance in the moment, we ensure customers experience both faster service and stronger privacy safeguards. We’re absolutely thrilled with this recognition, as it aligns perfectly with both our corporate and retail services strategies”.
The ‘Privacy Check Pop-Up’ works by providing contact centre staff with an on-screen, interactive checklist. This checklist outlines the specific details needed to verify a customer’s identity when they call.
Key features of how it works include:
- Clear process: It gives staff a clear, step-by-step process to follow.
- Interactive checklist: The on-screen checklist shows the required details for verification.
- Alternative Verification: It offers alternative ways to verify a customer’s identity if they cannot provide a specific piece of information.
A new approach to privacy and protection
Yarra Valley Water’s focus on privacy and security is not just about compliance; it’s a core component of their CX strategy. Anelli comments, “The ‘privacy pop-up’ initiative was born out of a desire to move away from knowledge and memory driven processes, which placed a significant cognitive burden on frontline staff and left room for inconsistency. The new pop-up automates this, ensuring that customer data is handled securely and consistently every time”.
“This focus on security extends to our customers. We’ve also implemented multi-factor authentication (MFA) for phone calls, an additional layer of protection that was previously only available on our online portal. These initiatives are not just about protecting data; they are about uplifting the experience for both our customers and our employees. By automating these processes, we reduce the cognitive load on our staff, allowing them to focus on providing higher-quality, more personalised service”.
The future of CX: Safety, AI, and Shared Knowledge
Looking ahead, Yarra Valley Water’s strategy is built on three core pillars designed to improve both customer and employee experiences in the areas of:
- Empowering customer choice and making it easy: The goal is to give customers more control and flexibility in how they interact with YVW. This includes offering a variety of channels and services that are easy to use and navigate, ensuring every interaction is as smooth and efficient as possible.
- Future-ready workforce: To keep pace with evolving technology, YVW is investing in its people, building an adaptive workforce by focusing on three key areas: digital capability, critical thinking, and adaptability. By equipping employees with these skills, YVW ensures its team is ready to embrace and work effectively with new technologies as they emerge.
- Putting people first: At the foundation of everything YVW does: keeping both customers and employees safe, supported, understood and treated with empathy and respect is priority. This commitment is central to building trust and fostering a secure environment for everyone.
“To achieve these goals, we are reimagining our processes, especially through automation and exploring the ethical and responsible use of AI. For instance, we are currently testing an auto-summary tool that summarises calls for our consultants in real time. This makes calls more efficient and allows our team to focus on providing higher-quality, more personalised, and holistic service”, says Anelli.
“Additionally, we are working to automate routine inquiries. With 300,000 to 350,000 calls coming into our contact centre each year, many can be handled through automation and self-service. This allows us to upskill our consultants so they can focus on the more complex issues customers face”.
“Importantly, while we expand automation, we remain committed to ensuring it’s always easy for customers to talk to a human when they want or need to. Customers will always have a clear pathway to speak with a consultant, so we can deliver both convenience and care.”
Sharing the journey
YVW shared its ‘Privacy Check Pop-Up’ with other water companies, and many have since adopted it. Similarly, since successfully deploying multi-factor authentication (MFA), YVW has been approached by other organisations seeking to learn from its experience.
“We believe that sharing our journey is a crucial part of our responsibility. The water sector is not a competitive one, and we are committed to lifting all boats. We’ve shared our privacy pop-up and MFA initiatives with other water utilities and cross-sector organisations like energy and telecommunications companies. This collaborative approach allows us to learn from one another and collectively work towards the goal of ensuring the safety and well-being of our communities’.
A human-centered approach to the future of CX
Yarra Valley Water’s journey proves that the future of customer experience is not just about speed and efficiency; it’s about putting people first. By building a strategy on the pillars of customer and employee choice, a future-ready workforce, and prioritising safety, YVW is creating a model that is both innovative and deeply empathetic.
This proactive, human-centered approach, combined with a commitment to cross-sector collaboration, shows that YVW isn’t just redefining its own CX—it’s helping to lift the entire industry. They are proving that the most successful and sustainable strategies are those built on trust, safety, and a shared responsibility to serve the community.