Customer Satisfaction Reaches a New High at Scottish Water

A relentless focus on delivering improvements for customers has seen Scottish Water earn its highest ever levels of satisfaction among the public.

The Institute of Customer Service has confirmed that customer satisfaction reached record levels for the publicly-owned utility in 2015-16.

That cemented Scottish Water’s place as one of the UK’s top-performing water companies, with an average household charge which continues to be among the lowest in Great Britain.

Commenting on the achievements highlighted in Scottish Water’s 2015-16 Annual Report, published today, Douglas Millican, Chief Executive, said: “Our customers expect us to provide excellent service, constantly improving water quality and value-for-money. We are proud to have delivered on all counts.

“It is particularly pleasing to see this reflected in customer satisfaction levels. Now we want to build on that and continue striving for further improvements.

“In 2015-16, we made a good start to a six-year regulatory period which will see £3.5 billion invested in the nation’s water and waste water infrastructure.

“As well as helping to achieve further improvements in customer service and water quality, our investment will support the Scottish economy while protecting and enhancing the environment.”

Publication of the Annual Report shows that customer service levels were high across three separate measures, starting with the Institute of Customer Service which put satisfaction at a new high of 78.6 points.

Meanwhile Scottish Water also outperformed its regulatory customer service targets, set by the independent Water Industry Commissioner, achieving a score of 393 on the Overall Performance Assessment (OPA).

Finally, Scottish Water’s new Customer Experience Measure (CEM), was introduced in April 2015 to give a much broader view of performance – and it saw scores increase by 1.7 points to 84.3.

Other notable successes in the annual report included:

An average household charge which is among the lowest in Great Britain and which will see 2016-17 bills set at £38 lower than the average in England and Wales.

The quality of drinking water in Scotland reached a new record high, with 99.93% of all tests taken in 2015 complying with strict regulatory standards.