Utility Week

26 | NOVEMBER 2021 | UTILITY WEEK Customers Analysis C-Mex costs Thames dear Ofwat's verdict on water company customer service was published in September, and Thames Water was the biggest loser. Tom Grimwood reports. T hames Water will hand back almost £16.7 million to customers aer receiv- ing the lowest score in Ofwat's annual ranking of customer satisfaction with water companies. Portsmouth topped the leaderboard for 2020/21 followed by Wessex and Northumbrian. Ofwat rated water and wastewater compa- nies on the customer measure of experience (C-Mex) for residential customers, allocating financial rewards to companies with the top half of scores and penalties to those in the bottom half. Portsmouth secured a reward of £283,000 aer achieving a C-Mex score of 86.22. Wes- sex scored 86.09 and will receive slightly more than £2 million, while Northumbrian scored 85.76 and will receive over £2.9 million. Thames came bottom of the table with a C-Mex score of just 72.92. Southern received the second lowest score of 74.64 and will be penalised to the tune of £4.9 million. Affin- ity came third to last with a score of 77.88 and will receive a penalty of more than £1.5 million. Companies were similarly rated on the developer services measure of experience (D-Mex) concerning parties such as property developers requesting a new connection. Severn Trent received the highest score of 89.70 and will be awarded nearly £3.9 mil- lion, while SES received the lowest score of 60.2 and will be docked £344,000. The C-Mex and D-Mex schemes were introduced as part of PR19 as replacements for the Service Incentive Mechanism, which had been in operation since 2010. C-Mex scores are based on two monthly surveys of random members of the public and customers that have recently contacted their water company asking how satisfied they were with their service and experiences. In the case of the latter, customers are also asked whether they would recommend the company to their family and friends. These net promoter scores are measured and reportedly separately to the C-Mex scores used to determine financial incentives. D-Mex scores are based on monthly qualitative surveys of developers that have recently completed a transaction with their water company as well as a set of quantita- tive metrics of the level of service provided. Ofwat piloted the new mechanisms dur- ing 2019/20 but did not apply any financial incentives. The regulator says it has not Rank Company C-Mex score Payment (£m) 1 Portsmouth Water 86.22 0.283 2 Wessex Water 86.09 2.022 3 Northumbrian Water 85.76 2.925 4 Welsh Water 85.15 2.014 5 United Utilities 83.59 2.076 6 Bristol Water 83.31 0.162 7 Anglian Water 83.05 1.127 8 Yorkshire Water 82.78 0.466 9 Severn Trent Water 82.35 0 10 South Staffs Water 81.89 -0.08 11 Hafren Dyfrdwy 81.38 -0.035 12 South West Water 80.96 -0.536 13 South East Water 80.7 -0.401 14 SES Water 78.97 -0.226 15 Affinity Water 77.88 -1.545 16 Southern Water 74.64 -4.906 17 Thames Water 72.92 -16.659 Rank Company D-Mex score Payment (£m) 1 Severn Trent Water 89.7 3.881 2 Wessex Water 89.47 0.698 3 Portsmouth Water 89.2 0.099 4 Hafren Dyfrdwy 89.01 0.035 5 United Utilities 88.44 1.053 6 Anglian Water 87.72 1.175 7 Northumbrian Water 86.94 0.354 8 Bristol Water 86.81 0.055 9 South West Water 85.88 0 10 Affinity Water 84.39 -0.094 11 South Staffs Water 83.59 -0.073 12 Dwr Cymru 82.69 -0.354 13 South East Water 79.85 -0.239 14 Thames Water 77.56 -1.861 15 Southern Water 73.77 -1.033 16 Yorkshire Water 62.25 -2.884 17 SES Water 60.2 -0.344 51.64 54.74 62.41 66.61 67.78 68.79 69.96 70.72 71.54 72.78 75.73 76.83 77.09 79.02 80.25 80.52 81.03 82.78 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Sutton & ES Yorkshire Water Southern SES Welsh Thames South Staffs Affinity Total SWW Anglian Bristol United Hafren Northumbrian Severn Wessex Portsmouth drawn a comparison between the latest results and the scores during this "shadow year" because of subsequent changes to the methodology. The total C-Mex rewards and penalties for 2020/21 are around £11.1 million and £24.4 million respectively, while the total D-Mex rewards and penalties amount to roughly £7.4 million and £6.9 million. Ofwat interim chief executive David Black said: "We recognise companies have had to overcome challenges over the past year and we are pleased to see some improvements in customer service levels. Customers expect their water provider to deliver good customer service and those who fail to meet those expectations need to raise their performance. "We want companies to continually strive to improve the quality of their customer experience. Those companies who are lead- ing the sector have been rightly rewarded. "We will continue to hold companies to account and expect those that are at the lower end of the league table to step up and learn from other companies in the sector to improve their performance more quickly so that customers do not lose out." Tom Grimwood, news editor D-MEX QUALITATIVE SCORE The following figure shows overall mean satisfaction (the measure by which the qualitative component of the D-MeX score is judged), by water company:

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