Thames adds regional focus to turnaround plans

Thames Water has begun bringing customer contact centres back to the UK and in-house as part of its ambitions to transform customer services.

The water company also announced a revised operational management approach that will see two regionally based-teams managing the frontline operational organisation. From April, a team in London and a second in Thames Valley and the Home Counties will be established to bring more flexibility in how they work, respond faster to regional challenges and accelerate improvements.

The changes are part of Thames’ eight-year turnaround plan, launched by chief executive Sarah Bentley in March last year to “fix the basics, raise the bar and shape the future.”

Bentley said of the first anniversary: “Our aim is to always deliver brilliant customer service and environmental performance – it’s the biggest priorities for our turnaround plan.  We recognise that customers want a variety of ways to contact us so we are investing further in a range of digital channels such as web chat and social media while still prioritising our telephony channels and bringing this service back in-house and on-shore.”

“In addition, since launching our turnaround strategy, I have become acutely aware that we do not offer our customers the local customer service that they want and deserve. So the change we are making today to realign our business will better serve our customers in London and those in the Thames Valley and deliver significantly improved customer and environmental performance that is tailored to the needs of each region,” Bentley said.

Thames said it is also integrating smart metering with online billing, with a customer portal giving users quick access to their usage and information on reducing consumption.

Since launching the plan, Thames has reported improvements to water quality, complaints management and supply interruptions performance. The changes included an almost total overhaul of the executive team to be “frontline first focused”.