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Three of England’s water retailers have been criticised after complaints from business customers increased for the second year in a row.
That’s the verdict from the Consumer Council for Water (CCWater). which says retailers such as Water Plus. Clear Water Business and Everflow have failed to fix issues causing complaints. which have risen by 52% since the market opened two years ago.
Overall. business customers made nearly 18.000 written complaints to both retailers and water companies during 2018 19
CCWater notes Water Plus saw complaints rise by more than 70% and says it had to investigate 21 complaints against the retailer as it struggled to resolve billing problems – this is seven more complaints than any other company.
Smaller suppliers were also affected – the new report highlights Clear Water Business was the worst performer for complaints made to the watchdog over the period. while Everflow was criticised for its slow response time to customers.
CCWater says the number of written complaints rose by 20% during 2018 19. with a total of eight retailers in England and one water company in Wales seeing complaints increase – this meant the organisation had to carry out a total of 58 investigations. more than double the amount in the previous year.
Robert Light. Chair of CCWater. said: “Choice promised to improve service for business customers but instead we are seeing complaints rising while customer satisfaction levels head in the opposite direction.
Poor-performing retailers and water companies have had long enough to iron out these problems and the excuses won’t wash with us or customers. We want to see the regulator take action where companies are not fulfilling their obligations.
Andy Hughes. Chief Executive of Water Plus. said: For us. one complaint is one too many and we’re continuing to drive these down through our focused improvement programme and the combined efforts of all our people. These figures are historic and. following the significant investments we made in 2018. we’ve seen complaints drop by around 40% in the last three months.
As we worked through and cleansed some older and more complex account activities in the last year. we unfortunately expected – and planned for – complaints to increase in the short-term and then for these to reduce. We’ve also been working closely with the Consumer Council for Water (CCWater). providing regular updates on the strong progress we’ve made.
Everflow Managing Director. Josh Gill. said: “It is great to see the progress that we have made. as highlighted in the 18 19 report. showing that we have gone from 10th best to 6th best in half a year. We are also pleased to announce that we have seen continued improvement evidenced in Q1 of 2019 and are well ahead of average benchmarks pre-market opening so we look forward to next year’s report.
However. we are disappointed with how CCW has chosen to represent us given where we are currently positioned in the table. Especially considering their acknowledgement that the methodology. which favours incumbents over companies who target SMEs. could have been improved. OfWat is calling for the market to engage more with SMEs and we need to make sure that all public facing reporting provides accurate and reliable information for SMEs looking to switch.
