Bristol Water commits to offer paper bills to customers

Bristol Water said on Wednesday that it will provide its 1.1 million customers paper bills and statements without extra charge.

The water company is the latest service provider to make the committment as part of the Keep Me Posted campaign, a partnership of representatives to fight for the consumer’s right to choose.

Bristol Water joins Welsh Water, Yorkshire Water and Wessex Water as one of the service providers publically recognised by the campaign as providing paper bills and statements to its customers without imposing charges or other penalties or taking away continued access to online.

The firm’s customer services director Ben Newby said: “We recognise that our customers should have the right to choose the format that suits them best, and while online billing is growing in popularity there will always be a demand for good old fashioned paper billing through the post.”

The campaign leaders said that increasingly businesses – such as financial service, media and utility companies – are restricting access to paper bills and statements, and denying their customers an informed choice.

This is despite independent research which demonstrates that 81 per cent of adults want to choose how they receive important information such as bills and statements.

Chair of the Keep Me Posted campaign, Judith Donovan, said: “We hope that the marks of distinction encourage other companies to follow Bristol Water’s lead and protect the right of customers to choose how they are communicated with.

“While many service providers are actively pressuring their customers to move away from monthly paper statements and towards online-only billing, Bristol Water has demonstrated that it does not have a ‘one size fits all’ approach to its customers.”