Customer priorities tracking research

CCW and Ofwat have been working together to establish a clear and consistent way to understand which service priorities matter most to water customers, and how these change over time. Our work has led us to develop a quarterly tracker which will run over the next 18 months and allow us to track whether customer priorities shift with seasonal conditions and weather. We will be able to gauge the impact of factors like changing demand for water services and differing customer experiences during wetter months and hotter/drier periods. The aim is to capture a more accurate picture of customer preferences when it comes to the different priority areas that will be tested.

It will deliver key insights for the wider price review engagement process, including helping to inform Ofwat’s outcome delivery incentives (ODI) determinations and, more broadly, keep CCW’s finger on the pulse of customer opinion.

Findings

The findings from this first survey – which will be used as a baseline for future waves – include:

• Clean, safe drinking water is the clear leading priority, with 91% rating it highly important (i.e. a score of 8 or more, out of 10). When asked why they gave it this score, the most commonly-cited themes were around protecting health, confidence in safe tap water, and the fact that clean water is seen as a basic right.
• This was followed by preventing sewage flooding inside the home, with 87% of customers rating this highly important, and keeping pipes and sewers in good working order at 86%.
• While the above services lead the way, many importance scores are close: One-third of customers rated all 14 service areas as important, and around half rated 13 or 14 as important. This suggests customers see these as a broad package of essential water company responsibilities, not isolated priorities.
• Even for the least important service area, ‘Provide information and support about how to use less water’, only 4% gave it a score of less than 4 out of 10.
• Customers in Wales ranked the same top priority, clean, safe drinking water, but pollution reduction ranks second at 89%, compared with 85% overall and 84% in England. However, differences should be treated cautiously because the Wales base is smaller, with 100 respondents.