Client story: Large Metropolitan Water Corporation

RSM Australia was appointed to undertake internal audit services a large metropolitan water corporation in Victoria. 

Our approach was to deliver the services with a senior experienced Internal Audit and Data Analytics team directly chosen based on the topics on the internal audit program that the Client developed, namely around: 

• Quality Management Systems Reviews;
• Assessment of controls to mitigate risk of natural disasters and infrastructure failure;   
• Data Privacy and Cyber Security;
• Contract Management review;
• Digital Utility Project Review;
• Wages compliance Review;
• Change Management Framework;
• Customer Billing and Debt Management;
• Customer Complaints Management;
• Risk Management Framework Maturity Assessment; and
• Emergency Management Amendment (Critical Infrastructure Resilience) Act 2014. 

Our reviews have been delivered to a high standard, on time, on budget and meeting the expectations of all stakeholders involved in both organisations. 

Customer Complaints Management

RSM performed a detailed review of the adequacy of processes and controls to manage customer complaints at the Client, including capturing, reviewing, reporting and responding to external customer complaints and recommendations. This included assessment of the completeness, timeliness, consistency, efficiency and effectiveness of the Client’s customer complaints and disputes processes and controls, and benchmarking against other organisations where appropriate and regulatory requirements. 

The review also included data analytics performed by RSM’s Data Analytics team, led by our SME Srdjan Dragutinovic, Partner in Data Analytics. The data analytics procedures analysed data from the complaints management system including the content of complaints and categorisation of complaints, and analysed information to identify delays in complaint resolution/response times. 

Apart from assessing the adequacy of the complaints management process and controls in place, the collaboration of the core Internal Audit team and the Data Analytics team has identified the root causes and common themes on complaints received, providing practical recommendations to reduce the number of complaints received. 

In addition, as part of this review, the Data Analytics team developed a customer complaints dashboard that assists the Client’s customer service team with regulatory compliance in relation to complaints handling, as well as enabling improvement of complaint handling processes.