Wessex Water has come out top of the league according to water industry regulator Ofwat’s Service Incentive Mechanism (SIM) Survey 2016/17 Annual Report, while Thames Water came in last in 18th place.
The Service Incentive Mechanism (SIM) was introduced in 2010 as a means of encouraging water companies to improve their customer service.
For each water company taking part in the regular SIM research, a target was set of 200 telephone interviews per wave with customers who have had a water or sewerage query resolved in the previous week, equating to 800 interviews per Water Company per year.
The overall objective of the research is to provide a robust comparable measure of consumers’ experience and satisfaction with the handling and resolution of a recent water or sewerage query by their supplier.
The combined SIM data for 2015-16 to 2018-19 will be used to support Ofwat’s decision on financial incentives in 2019.
The report shows that customers were significantly more satisfied with the handling of Billing enquiries than either Clean or Waste enquiries.
Those who contacted their water company online were significantly more likely to be satisfied with the handling of their matter than any other method of contact.
Although customer contact via online represented only a small proportion (one in twenty-five) of customers, the SIM score for online contact was significantly higher than those who contacted by any other means. Telephone was by far the most common means of customer contact and the SIM score by this method of contact was second only to the SIM score of the online contact.
Satisfaction was highest in Quarter 4 of the SIM, significantly so compared to Quarter 1 and Quarter 2.
Wessex Water achieved the highest overall satisfaction score in 2016/17. Water and sewerage companies (WASCs) made up three of the top five companies in 2016/17.
In the previous year, 2015/16 water only companies (WOCs) performed significantly better than WASCs, however, this year the SIM scores were very similar for WOCs and WASCs.
SIM results have improved significantly across the industry since 2015/16 overall - largely driven by the significant increase in satisfaction with the handling for Clean and Waste queries.
The regulator has proposed that two new customer experience measures should replace the SIM after 2020 in its PR2019 methodolgy consultation.