Introduction by Tanya Sephton, our Customer Services Director

Priority Services Register (PSR) numbers have risen strongly again with 130,452 customers on the PSR by 31 March – that’s 14.12 per cent of customers. This compares with 100,869 (11.03 per cent) in 2023/24. Our community work, data sharing with energy companies, and trusted partnerships with organisations such as Scope and Golding Homes are helping us reach more customers who need support.

We’ve retained the BSI Inclusive Service Kitemark certification, recognising our services for vulnerable customer services, achieving zero non-conformities for the second year. This follows a successful annual gold-standard Kitemark assessment in January.

We’ve introduced company-wide vulnerability training for colleagues, equipping them with the tools and knowledge to support customers. Training is being rolled out on specific issues including chronic kidney disease (CKD), coinciding with the launch of our new trusted partnership with Kidney Care UK to help the 76,000 people with CKD in our supply area.

Our annual Vulnerability Stakeholder Conference in East Grinstead in February attracted 61 attendees from 45 separate organisations across the charity, utility, housing, financial and community sectors.

Our final Vulnerability Strategy will be published at the end of June following positive feedback from the regulator Ofwat and the CCW. Our Vulnerability team continues to grow, underlining our commitment to this focus area

More support than ever is available for customers who need help paying their bill. We’ve launched the new social tariff structure, applying a tiered discount based on household income. By raising the upper income threshold we are able to help more customers.

We’re increasing our home water efficiency audits to our customers. During these audits, we discuss water usage, fit water-saving devices and fix any internal leaks we find. They help us promote support to our vulnerable customers and those struggling to pay their bills, making them aware of our PSR and affordability tariffs.

Partnering with Ashford Borough Council, we gave away 500 water butts to customers on the PSR. We’ve also launched a campaign to sell water butts at heavily subsidised prices via the Save Water Save Money website, with 600 already purchased. From October to March, we gave away five water butts a month as part of our campaign helping customers prepare for winter.

We’ve given out 198,555 free water-saving devices, including leaky loo detection strips and water-saving shower heads, compared to 180,495 in 2023/24.

There have been increases in customers registering for our online account portal, MyAccount. By 31 March, 535,957 customers had registered. This represents 58 per cent of customers, up from 484,053 customers (52 per cent) in 2023/2024. Customers complete on average 28,000 self-serve transactions a month via My Account.

We continue engaging My Account customers ‘Behind the Tap, our monthly newsletter, which explains what we’re doing to provide water and delivers helpful water efficiency advice. It is sent to 500,000+ customers a month and enjoys a strong digital engagement rate.

Our contact centre staff answered 98 per cent of the 30,000 customer telephone calls we receive on average every month within 30 seconds. We are pleased that written complaints have reduced by 30 per cent by trying to resolve customer issues in the first contact with us and through proactive messaging during supply interruptions via AquAlerter. 

We continue to improve our customer incident messaging system AquAlerter. Customers can now report leaks through the system and we’ll automatically keep affected customers updated on progress.

We are proud to have been awarded The Institute of Customer Service ServiceMark accreditation in recognition of our customer service standards and commitment to upholding those high standards.

In March we partnered with East Sussex County Council to hand deliver nearly 190,000 properties, with cards containing water efficiency tips and a QR code for more information. The initiative helped us reach digitally excluded customers.

We’ve achieved 9th on the C-MeX (Customer Measure of Experience) Q4 table, our highest position since 2017, when there was a different performance system in place. This puts us 12th overall for the year.

We’ve engaged with customers and stakeholders, including nine Members of Parliament, and been involved in 71 events, including engineering project drop-in sessions, council meetings, site visits, open days and a virtual Q&A session – “Behind the tap: Your drinking water questions answered.” Modelled on the Your Water, Your Say sessions of 2023/2024, the independently chaired sessions gave customers and stakeholders opportunity to speak directly with members of the Executive. Over 200 people attended this session. 

Our annual Community Chest scheme supported local charities and community groups, distributing £20,000 to good causes this year, including schools, a community garden, bowling club, a drop-in centre and a nature-based charity helping vulnerable children.