Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1131895
16 | XXXXX 20XX | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk The Works W ater has sometimes been described as the silent service. As long as the taps continue to flow and the toilets continue to flush, most customers will have had little cause to ever contact their water company and, for their part, as long as they deal with the incidents and complaints that do occur, water companies have had little cause to concern themselves with what the majority of their customers think of them. This is all about to change with the arrival of the customer measure of performing water companies receiving fi- nancial incentives and the worst receiving penalties, with the amounts depending on how far the scores vary from the average. There will be an additional level of incen- tive available if water utilities can achieve an upper quartile net promoter score (NPS) when compared to firms across the economy, which is intended to drive better performing water companies to match the higher levels of customer service seen in some other sectors. So how might water companies perform against C-MeX, how will it drive Ofwat's new customer measure of experience (C-MeX) is now being road-tested and water companies will start to be judged against it from April next year. So how will water companies measure up, and what will they need to do to perform well against the new benchmark? By James Brockett C-MeX: Keeping the customer satisfied 16 | JULY 2019 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk experience (C-MeX), the new measure of customer satisfaction being brought in by Ofwat for AMP7. C-MeX, which replaces the Service Incentive Mechanism (SIM), will not only measure the views of customers who call their water company but will also incorporate a survey of a random set of customers, meaning that for the first time companies will be judged on the satisfac- tion of customers who have not had any recent cause to contact them. C-MeX scores will be published in a league table each quarter, with the best