Ensuring the safety of millions of UK homes and businesses
At a glance
As the operator of the UK’s National Gas Emergency Helpline, Cadent plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety of millions of homes and businesses across the country. However, when faced with reports of gas leaks from nonstandard locations, the system was not quick enough in identifying an exact location, adding potential delays to a gas escape response. Cadent turned to Slalom for a lightning-speed solution.
Impact
With Slalom’s help, Cadent built a cutting-edge geolocation app tailored to its specialised requirements which allowed the team to reduce response times, arriving at the exact location, and resulting in faster resolution throughout the UK.
Key Services
Industry
Energy & Utilities
Key Technologies / Platforms
- Amazon Web Services
- Amazon Location Service
- API Gateway
- AWS Lambda
- SNS
- SQS
A catalyst for change
Picture this: a passer-by attempts to report a gas leak. Despite their best efforts, the emergency response team is directed to the wrong location, a mere 300 metres away from the actual site. While injuries are rare and most gas leaks are repaired immediately once identified, this was the challenge Cadent faced with its geolocation system. There was a clear risk and danger that the next time could prove life-threatening for people and property. Dan Edwards, head of customer service operations at Cadent, knew he could improve the service and made it his personal mission to find a solution:
From design to deployment in just four weeks
Our partners at AWS were initially contacted about the requirements. Due to our track record of fast and reliable delivery, AWS asked Slalom to help. Recognising the gravity and importance of the work, our Slalom team sprang into action. The app we developed allows customer service representatives to help locate people who are reporting a gas leak or fault at a location that doesn’t have an address.
Key developments included creating dedicated testing environments, allowing for smooth integration and functionality, as well as using continuous integration and continuous delivery principles to make deployment easier.
The Slalom team leveraged the power of AWS, architecting a core platform that served as the backbone of the geolocation solution. Stand-alone user applications were also designed to be accessible via web browsers, ensuring compatibility with older handsets.
Most crucial to the success of the work was seamless integration with the existing contact centre infrastructure, showing the delivery of a cohesive user experience. The Slalom, AWS, and Cadent teams worked exceptionally well together to ensure easy adoption.
