Introduction by Tanya Sephton, our Customer Services Director

To achieve this, we need to really understand our customers and their expectations and priorities, and we need to find ways to support them to have a positive experience of our company. This includes helping those who may need extra support.

Supply interruptions during the year, particularly in Kent and Sussex, have regrettably impacted on our customer satisfaction score. Our performance under our main customer measure (C-MeX/Customer Measure of Experience) was 70.81 out of 100 in 2023/24, compared with an industry median average of 76.54. This ranked us 15th out of 17 companies.

To improve our customer communication during interruptions we launched AquAlerter, our brand-new SMS (text message) incident communications platform, which represents a step-change in the way we communicate with customers during an incident, enabling us to update them faster and more frequently.

Designed and run in-house, the texts from AquAlerter are received by approximately 75 per cent of customers affected by an incident, and we are actively working to increase this figure by getting customers who have yet to provide us with their mobile phone number to do so. This is considerably higher than the reach achieved through our previous system. The platform hosts an interactive map, where customers can place a pin at the exact point of a leak and sign up for updates on that leak’s repair, improving reporting.

We continue to lead the industry with our community work to reach and support more customers who may need extra help and we are extremely proud of our ongoing achievements in this important area.

"Our Priority Services Register (PSR) numbers have risen by 28,005 to 100,869 this year, representing a 38.5 per cent increase since March 2023. This means 11.03 per cent of our customers are now on the PSR (8.03 per cent, March 2023). "

More than half of our customers have now registered for our online My Account services, making it quicker and easier for customers to manage their water accounts. By 31 March, 484,053 customers had registered, up 14 per cent on the previous year (from 425,928). This represents 52.8 per cent of customers and meant we achieved this target a year early. Through My Account, customers can self-serve 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Customers can also access detailed information on their usage, compared to others, and also request free water-saving devices. In 2023/24 we sent out 180,495 leaky loo detection strips, water-saving shower heads and other devices to customers, exceeding our 130,000 target.

Our two new Community Partnership Leads have successfully linked up with more than 150 organisations across our supply area to raise awareness of the PSR and build trust through community engagement. They’ve attended dozens of community events and sessions promoting other support services for signposting such as Citizens Advice centres, Job Centres, and foodbanks and developed important relationships with community groups, charities, councils and other stakeholders.

We made 11,100 bottled water deliveries to vulnerable customers on the PSR in 2023/24. Contingency planning with councils will enable us to offer vulnerable customers more support during incidents and we’re also boosting our incident support services through partnerships with external companies.

In January our ongoing commitment to supporting vulnerable customers was again recognised with recertification to the Inclusive Service Kitemark, following an intensive assessment. Inspectors acknowledged that vulnerability and helping those with additional needs is embedded within our business and culture. We have an award-winning, industry-leading Vulnerability Strategy which drives our approach which we’re currently updating for submission to the regulator. Also in January, we brought together key stakeholders to discuss the challenges facing vulnerable customers at our annual Vulnerability Stakeholder event. More than 50 leading lights from 34 organisations attended to gain the latest industry insight from experts. We also ran a workshop to help inform and shape our revised Vulnerability Strategy.

We increased our social tariff with inflation to a household income threshold of £18,750 in April. Now, we’re planning a new structured tariff system to replace the capped approach and this has been driven by feedback from stakeholders and customers, as well as best practice, benchmarking and modelling. We’re also reviewing our Water Poverty Support, working on the modelling to offer more quality support.

As we look to widen our support further, we’ve teamed up with Age Concern and are working on partnerships with SCOPE and Kidney Care UK to share data and better understand the challenges faced by our older customers and those with disabilities, and customers with kidney disease.

We’re also working with schools to pilot a new AquaSmart educational programme in primary schools before a wider roll-out. This programme will teach children the importance of looking after our precious resource.

We also continue to work with farmers and landowners to build resilience by helping them save and store water for hotter and drier months through rainwater harvesting systems and other initiatives. We’ve been pleased to support the communities we serve through our annual Community Chest scheme again this year by distributing a £20,000 fund to good causes across our supply area, including schools and cricket clubs.

Our measures

• Customer satisfaction
• Customer satisfaction with value for money
• Customer Measure of Experience (C-Mex)
• Developer Measure of Experience (D-Mex)
• Satisfaction of household customers who are receiving, or applying for non-financial supported
• Satisfaction of household customers on our vulnerability schemes during a supply interruption
• Satisfaction of household customers who are experiencing payment difficulties 
• Satisfaction of stakeholders in relation to the assistance offered by South East Water 
• Priority services for customers in vulnerable circumstances 
• Household customers receiving financial support 
• Develop a future generation schools programme 
• Create more partnership community projects on water use and vulnerability