South Staffs only water company to raise C-Mex score

All but one of the water and wastewater companies have seen a decline in their customer service scores in 2021/22, according to the latest figures from Ofwat, with the exception being South Staffs Water.

The regulator has released rankings for both the customer measure of experience (C-Mex), which gauges the quality of services for household customers, and the developer services measure of experience (D-Mex), which tracks the quality of services for developers and other third parties.

C-Mex scores are determined based on based on two customer satisfaction surveys – one of customers who have recently contacted their company and another of randomly selected customers. D-Mex scores are based on feedback from a regular qualitative satisfaction survey and a quantitative measure of company performance on a set of key metrics.

Although overall C-Mex scores remained better than in 2019/20, South Staffs Water was the only company to see an increase when compared to 2020/21. Its score rose from 81.89 to 83.38, pushing it up six places to fourth.

Wessex Water moved up one place to top the table with a score of 84.82. Northumbrian Water also moved up one place to second, whilst the previous leader, Portsmouth Water, dropped two places to third.

Thames Water again came in last, with its score declining from 72.92 to 68.86. Southern Water also stayed in second to last place, with its score dropping from 74.64 to 72.

Ofwat described the results as a “cause for concern” and said all companies should be immediately taking steps to improve and learn from other high-performing sectors.

The regulator said Thames Water and Southern Water are both expected to incur “significant” underperformance penalties for their scores. The companies received penalties of £16.8 million and £4.9 million for their scores in 2020/21.

The picture was better for D-Mex scores, with the majority of companies seeing an increase. Hafren Dyfrdwy moved up three places to first after raising its score from 89.01 to 91.27.

Severn Trent dropped one place to second, whilst Portsmouth Water remained in third. Both companies increased their scores.

Yorkshire Water dropped one place to last following a sharp decline in its D-Mex score from 62.25 to 55.08. SES Water, which previously came last, moved up one place following an even larger increase in its score from 60.2 to 77.39.

Commenting on the results, Ofwat chief executive David Black said: “It’s vital that companies focus on their customers and improve the service they receive, and we remain focused on ensuring their performance gets better. I am concerned to see that customer service levels have dipped across the sector.

“This is not good enough and we expect companies to take action to address this. Those at the bottom of the leaderboard will pay back significant amounts to customers to reflect their poor service.”

Ofwat said the rewards and penalties for C-Mex and D-Mex scores will be announced within the draft in-period determinations which are due to published in the coming weeks.

The regulator noted that its draft methodology for PR24 included a proposal to strengthen water companies’ incentives for improving customer services as well as plans to introduce a new customer-focused conditions in all companies’ licences.

Mike Keil, senior director for policy, research and campaigns at the Consumer Council for Water, said: “It is extremely disappointing that only one water company has managed to improve when the whole industry should be striving to give customers the best possible experience.”

“Companies have so many opportunities to improve people’s experiences of their services, whether that’s ensuring financial support reaches households that are struggling with the cost of living or helping people to become more water efficient during the current drought.

“Looking forward, we’d also like to see customer complaints carrying more weight within C-Mex to help drive improvements for households.”

Warren Buckley, customer experience director at Thames Water, said: “Our aim is to always deliver brilliant customer service. It’s one of the biggest priorities of our plan to turn around our performance and our shareholders have recently approved an additional £2 billion into the business so we can improve outcomes for customers, leakage and river health.

“Last year we’ve saw a significant reduction in total complaints to the business following improvements to our customer service as well as a 39% reduction in supply interruptions in the last two years. We know we have more work to do to improve customer experiences across our services and we’re already accelerating the customer elements of our turnaround plan to improve our position.

“We’re determined to do better, and while we’re heading in the right direction, we know there is a long way to go.”

Katy Taylor, chief customer officer for Southern Water, said: “We take customer service extremely seriously at Southern Water, and are determined to meet the expectations of both our household and business customers across our region.

“Although our ranking is still not good enough, we have seen a significant improvement in our D-Mex score over the past year and both D-Mex and C-Mex have risen in the first quarter of this financial year.

“Ongoing improvements are being driven by a new, user-friendly complaints systems, improvements to how we listen and respond to our customers, and we have cut our billing response time from 10 working days to an average of just three.

“We know we have much more to do but are confident that we are heading in the right direction.”