LSBUD exists in essence for one very simple reason – to keep people safe whilst digging, with ‘Safe Digging For All’ being not only our strapline but our passion.  Everything we do is centred around that goal, with the aim to make the LSBUD service as useful and easily accessible as possible helping to keep as many people safe whilst digging as we can.

With this in mind, at the beginning of each year we run a customer satisfaction survey asking for your feedback about our service and any ideas you may have that could improve on it.  The feedback we receive is invaluable to us and despite such a vast demographic of users, the response we had was fantastic with an overwhelming amount of positive comments so we thank you for this.

So what were some of your frustrations and how can we help ease them?

As we have seen in past years, there are a lot of recurring topics.  Some of these questions have been raised in previous years however it is clear that not all LSBUD Users are aware of the available solutions so we wanted to re-share some of these below:-

 

• It would be great if I could store my default search fields for submitting searches
  We can appreciate how frustrating it gets when having to enter the same information again and again.  There is good news though, the option to store default answers to specific fields when submitting a search is already built in to the system.  You can access these settings in the top right corner of your home screen once logged into LSBUD (see the images below).  There are a number of fields that you can then pre-define your answers to.

• It would be really helpful if there was a Chat function to allow me to speak with someone quickly
  There is!  Our online Webchat is available between the hours of 0900 – 1700 Monday to Friday.  You will see in the above image the icon in the bottom right corner to click for additional help.  This icon is accessible from all screens when submitting a search and also directly from the LSBUD website.  Clicking this icon will take you straight through to our friendly support team who are always happy to help and not a robot in sight!

• If only more asset owners were included on LSBUD
  This is a recurring theme every year and easily the most popular wish list item of our Users.  2025 has proved to be a fantastic year so far having already welcomed; UK Power Distribution, Eden Estuary Energy Ltd, Air Products & Advanced Electricity Networks.  In addition to these we were also extremely excited to launch LSBUD in Northern Ireland earlier this year.  This was a long awaited development and a huge milestone for LSBUD with Virgin Media o2 and Mutual Energy being our first two Members there, we look forward to seeing the Membership continue to grow even more!  There is no legislation in place to enforce membership to LSBUD, the asset owners we have included are all there by choice, recognising the importance of protecting lives whilst also protecting their networks and how LSBUD can help with that. With almost 170 Members now included on LSBUD protecting over 2 million kms of assets we are continually working to grow the Membership even more, attending industry events and doing everything we can to spread the word.  Please do get in touch with any links to any asset owners that you or your organisation may have that you would like to see joining LSBUD. And please do put in a good word for us. Recommendations from our Users to asset owners who are not yet Members are extremely powerful. We’ll be very pleased to hear from those yet to join and will provide them with free analysis of risk to their network and a Membership proposal.

• I’d really like to be able to see all affected networks in one place
  You can!  Our Digital Insight Service was launched in summer 2024 and will allow you to do just that.  In the first instance you would be provided with a single report that includes PDF documents of EVERY known affected asset owner, this is both those included in LSBUD but also non LSBUD Members.  The full service however will upgrade this initial review to a Digital Composite Service that will provide a multi-layered interactive map, allowing you to toggle between single or multiple utilities at the touch of a button. Find out more about this and the other Advanced Services we provide here.

• It would be useful to be able to come back to a search that I was halfway through
  Whilst this isn’t an option on the web-based platform, you are able to do this when using the LSBUD app.  As long as you have completed the first page of the search, if you leave the app or get disconnected for any reason, when you open it again and select ‘new enquiry’ it will give you the option to start a new search or return to the old one.  This functionality is compatible with both Android & IOS devices, just search LSBUD in your App Store.

• What do I do if I need assistance outside of office hours?
  When you take into account the number of search enquiries that get submitted through LSBUD (set to hit more than 4 million in 2025!), people are always surprised to learn that we are actually a relatively small team of 11 people rather than a large contact centre with multiple departments.  We always make sure it is a human that you speak to when you contact us whether that is by phone, email or webchat and we try to ensure you always get a fast response on any query.  With such a small team though this does become a little harder when it is outside of normal working hours.  To help support our Users outside of Monday – Friday 0900 – 1700 we provide a lot of resources on our website which you can find here from video guides to FAQs and downloadable guide documents which will hopefully help in the majority of situations.  If it is an emergency relating to a particular Member’s asset then contact details for each of our Members will have been provided to you on the responses you receive by email following an LSBUD search.  The system itself operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week so if you submit a search at the weekend you will still receive a response with all these details in.

Once again, we would like to thank each and everyone of you that took the time to complete our feedback survey.  As fantastic as it is to see all the positive comments and suggestions, it is also useful for us to know things that you find frustrating so we can work on improving.

We have certainly learned a lot and hope that some of the solutions we have mentioned above will make a positive improvement for you and go that little step further towards safe digging for all.

The LSBUD Team