Under-fire Southern Water and Thames Water have been named the “standout poor performers” in handling complaints from customers over the past year by a water watchdog.
The Consumer Council for Water (CCW) found that customers of the two water companies, which together supply water and provide wastewater services to more than 20 million people in England, are “being let down by a failure to understand and deal with the causes of high levels of complaints from their customers”.
CCW found that the overall performance of the industry was “skewed” by the large number of complaints made by households to the two firms.
Complaints received by Southern Water were almost three times higher than the overall average for waste and sewerage companies, while those received by Thames Water were just over one-and-a-half times higher.
Southern Water – which serves customers across Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight – was the most-complained about company over the past year, according to the CCW’s report.
Last month, the regulator, Ofwat, ordered Thames Water to return £101m to customers, and Southern Water to hand back £43m, after underperforming on targets on leakage and sewage spills amid anger among politicians and the public over the actions of the water industry. Overall, water companies were ordered to return a balance of £114m to customers.
CCW said in its report it had so far been “unimpressed by Southern Water’s apparent lack of understanding of what drives customers to complain” as well as its ability to address the root causes of complaints.
Meanwhile, Thames Water – which has 15 million customers across London and the Thames Valley – was the only water and sewerage to be rated “poor” for both levels and handling of complaints.
It was also the worst-performing water supplier for billing disputes and the number of complaints that could not be resolved the first time that a customer asked.
The chief executive of the CCW, Mike Keil, said: “Trust in the water sector has never been more fragile and the task of rebuilding it is made all the more challenging when companies perform as poorly as Thames Water and Southern Water.”
Keil said CCW was concerned that Thames Water was “compounding customers’ frustrations with delays and a failure to resolve many issues first time”.
Nearly 233,000 complaints were made by households to water companies in England and Wales between April 2022 and the end of March this year.
Complaints about water services accounted for 30% of those received; this rose significantly during the summer drought of 2022, when six suppliers introduced hosepipe bans.
CCW is calling on poorly performing water suppliers to prioritise customer service through “significant and sustained” investment.
Thames Water’s retail director, David Bird, said the company was “working hard” to turn around its performance. He said the company had reduced its “total household complaints by 28% compared to last year alongside a large reduction in telephone complaints”.
Southern Water’s chief customer officer, Katy Taylor, said the company was “investing in video diagnostics, upskilling our customer service agents and keeping our customers regularly informed when issues take longer to fix”.
Earlier this week, water companies submitted five-year business plans to Ofwat asking customers to pay for a record £96bn investment to fix raw sewage leaks. Southern plans to increase bills by £262 from 2025, and Thames by £175 to £611.
