Scottish Water has been ranked the best UK water company and traditional utility for customer service in a leading benchmarking survey.

The Institute of Customer Service’s latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) showed the country’s public water and waste water provider had bucked the overall trend to come out ahead of other companies and rivals in the sector.

It also placed Scottish Water in the Top 50 across all sectors which includes a wider range of service providers for the first time.

The high satisfaction rating comes just weeks after Scottish Water was accredited with a ServiceMark awarded by the ICS for customer service standards.

Scottish Water serves 2.5 million households and 152,000 businesses delivering 1.4 billion litres of water and removing and cleaning almost 1 billion of waste water daily.

Peter Farrer, Scottish Water’s Chief Operating Officer, said:

“Over a number of years we have been increasingly building our service around the customer and their expectations.

“At a time when the values of good customer service have never been so important, and when the overall trend has been downward, the result is a great one and something we should be proud to have achieved.

“To be considered as one of the country’s leading service providers is a real motivator to do even more for our customers and I would like to thank them for providing this really positive feedback about what we do for them.”

Employees and customers provided an independent ServiceMark assessor with their feedback before a full review was completed.

Scottish Water’s assessment commended the pride which employees had in their work and desire to do the best for customers. It also pointed to a link between service excellence and the core purpose of the organisation and future vision for the water sector in Scotland.

The assessor stated:

“Whilst there are certainly many challenges ahead, particularly around meeting environmental demands and changes in our post pandemic working environment, I have no doubt that the company’s continued focus on the ongoing improvements for the customer – all its customers – will help meet those challenges head on and with measurable success”.

The ICS ServiceMark helps identify strengths and areas for improvement, enabling services and action planning, improve customer loyalty, trust and retention, increase efficiency, motivate employees and demonstrate an overall commitment to customer service excellence.