Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | MAY 2015 | 11 Industry leader Ian Plenderleith, Chief Executive, Dee Valley Water "The greatest advantage we have as a smaller company is agility." A s the supplier of water to 258,000 customers in north east Wales and north west England, Dee Valley Water is one of the smaller players in the sector. But one could never accuse its chief executive Ian Plenderleith - who took over at the Wrexham- based utility in August last year - of having a small-minded outlook. Plenderleith's career has included roles in Argentina and Estonia, and has spanned electricity as well as water; his most recent position was CEO of Tallinna Vesi, Estonia's only privatised water company, which is owned by United Utilities. Under his watch, Tallinna Vesi achieved the highest standards on water and wastewater quality and customer satisfaction in its history, and Plenderleith says that one of the biggest lessons he has learned about the sector over the years is the importance of customer service. "Water businesses are political companies - outside of the UK, they are even more political - but one of your greatest defences in the political arena is customer service excellence," he tells WWT. "If your customers believe you are providing a high calibre service, it's surprising how you can limit the impact of politics on your business." With this in mind, while he welcomes Ofwat's push for water companies to put customers and customer outcomes at the heart of their business, he adds that it is slightly disappointing that this needs to be said – all utilities, in his view, should put customers first as a matter of course. He has set the company the target of being in the top three water companies in England & Wales for SIM scores for customer service by 2020 (last year the company was a middling 10th). The company's research has shown that its customers prefer being served by a small, local water provider, but being small has both advantages and disadvantages, as Plenderleith explains. "The greatest advantage we have is agility. Almost all of our customers live within about 40 to 45 minutes of our main office, so we can easily reach them, so it's not a problem for us to make personal visits to our customers. That's certainly something that we'll be looking to take advantage of. The disadvantage we have is that because of our size, our fixed cost of serving customers is proportionately higher than everybody else's. For example, there are a lot of excellent customer service so›ware packages that utility companies are using now - we also have to invest in some of those systems, but the fixed cost of doing "Water businesses are political companies - outside of the UK, they are even more political - but one of your greatest defences in the political arena is customer service excellence"

• Cover