Customer priorities tracking research (Wave 2)

Young happy mixed race mother washing the dishes with her son and daughter in the kitchen at home. Little brother and sister helping their mom with the dishes.

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 led us to develop a quarterly tracker, the first wave of which was published in June. This is the second wave report, as we continue to track over the coming year 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) and, more broadly, keep CCW’s finger on the pulse of customer opinion.

Key findings

The findings from this second survey – following on from the baseline set in the first – include:

Clean, safe drinking water is the clear leading priority, with 90% rating it highly important (i.e. a score of 8 or more, out of 10), compared to 91% in W1.
This was followed by preventing sewage flooding inside the home, with 87% of customers rating this highly important (up from 86%), and keeping pipes and sewers in good working order at 86% (up from 84%).
While the above services lead the way, many importance scores are close: One-third of customers rated all 14 service areas as important, and just under half (45%) 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 5% gave it a score of less than 4 out of 10.
Customers in Wales ranked the same top priority, clean, safe drinking water, but keeping pipes and sewers in good working order was ranked second, with 88% of Welsh customers ranking it highly important. However, differences should be treated cautiously because the Wales base is smaller, with 100 respondents.