Water services’ complaints on the rise
June 17, 2008
According to a recent report the level of complaints relating to water services has been rising significantly over the 2006/2007 financial years, with a rise of 30% from the previous financial year. Figures come from the water watchdog for England and Wales, which shows that over 240,000 complaints were made in the 2006/2007 financial year, with the majority from customers of Thames Water, United Utilities and Severn Trent. Around 50% of the complaints are said to be about charging and billing issues.
The report showed that some companies reported a rise of over 100% in complaint levels, and amongst these suppliers were South East, Southern, Mid Kent, Sutton and East Surrey and Hartlepool. According to the Consumer Council for Water customers are becoming more and more demanding when it comes to their water suppliers, and they want to have their complaints dealt with properly first time around.
One official from the council stated that customers had seen their water prices increase by significant amounts in some cases, and wanted to receive a rise in the level of service to go with that price increase. He stated: “They see companies making good profits and they expect to see the service go with that. It’s mainly to do with the poor performance of three or four companies, particularly on billing and putting new billing systems in place.”
He also added: “There are some very good performers in there, it’s not to say the industry as a whole is failing. But the problem is, particularly with companies who have introduced new systems for working out the bills for customers and sending those bills out, including Severn Trent, South East Water and Southern, their complaints are actually up by several times over the previous year and they stand out as the poor performers.”
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