Retail performance

We provide business customers with information on water retail service providers' performance, including customer complaints. We collect this information from customer complaints made directly to providers and those reported to us.

How we measure performance

We use two complaint sources to gain insight into the performance of companies;

complaints received directly by retailers; and
complaints raised directly to CCW about companies.

To make sure complaints are fair for all retailers, we use something called a Supply Point ID (SPID). The measure we use to do this is ‘complaints per 10,000 supply points’. For example:

Total complaints: 600
Total supply points: 4,000,000
Complaints per 10,000 supply points = 600/4,000,000 x 10,000 = 1.5

How we compare performance

We recognise that for smaller retailers, each complaint can make performance appear disproportionately poor. We categorise retailers based upon their size in the following way;

smaller retailers – less than 5,000 supply points; and
larger retailers – more than 5,000 supply points.

In this industry, almost 99% of it is controlled by big retailers. Complaints about smaller retailers are quite rare, with only five reported to CCW in 2023-24. Because of this, we handle larger retailers separately from the smaller ones. We use the median and quartiles as our main ways to understand trends among the big retailers. When it comes to the smaller retailers, we rely more on detailed explanations and stories to analyse what’s happening.

We measure performance by complaints per 10,000 SPIDs and colour code them as follows:

How we measure
Good
Better than median*
At or worse than median*
Poor

*Median – a mid-point of the data set, or a middle value in the list of numbers that are arranged by highest to lowest.

Please note that the data in the publication is unaudited and is subject to change at the end of the year.

Larger retailer’s performance in 2025-26 (April 2025 to December 2025)

Company	Number of SPIDs	Total complaints per 10,000 SPIDs	Complaints to CCW per 10,000 SPIDs
ADSM	10689	0.0	0.0
Business Stream	390128	48.57	5.43
Castle Water	441209	46.86	13.19
Clear Business Water	24216	287.41	15.69
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water**	195249	38.98	0.87
Everflow	192890	22.29	4.87
Pozitive Water Limited	15063	32.53	1.33
Hafren Dyfrdwy**	8889	10.12	1.12
SES Business Water	33568	101.16	13.41
Source for Business	151406	10.77	2.84
Water Plus	697158	81.69	7.19
Water2Business	182793	27.13	0.66
Wave	393404	33.15	4.35

**Only business customers in Wales who use 50 megalitres of water per year are allowed to access the retail market and choose their water retailer. The above numbers for Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and Hafren Dyfrdwy relates to the total number of SPIDs and not just those in the open retail market. The majority of business customers in Wales continue to receive retail services from Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water or Hafren Dyfrdwy.

Small retailers’ performance in 2025-26 (April 2025 to December 2025)

We’re unable to colour code small retailers’ performance due to small number of complaints.

Company	Number of SPIDs	Complaints to retailer	Complaints to CCW
ConservAqua	4,231	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0	Total complaints: 1 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 2.36
The Water Retail Company	2,357	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0
Smarta Water	2,535	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 31.56	Total complaints: 3 Complaints per 10,000 supply points:11.84
Veolia Retail	1,148	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0
Yu Water	1,346	Total complaints: 24 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 178.28	Total complaints: 5 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 37.14

Complaint trend

Below, you’ll find graphs that track how retailer complaint trends changed over time. One graph shows complaints received by retailers per 10,000 supply points, while the other illustrates complaints reported directly to CCW per 10,000 supply points.

We can’t show complaint trends for small retailers, because we received very few complaints from them.