News
Two major water companies fail to live up to customer expectations in delivering a quality service.
Water billing errors still plaguing the deregulated English water retail market in the UK.
Many thousands of water bills containing blatant billing errors and demands for water bill payment a staggering 5 months in advance are still continuing to be posted out to business customers causing chaos and disruption to water consultants who process multi national water bills for business in retail, leisure and health sectors. Bills are piling up unpaid with complaint after complaint falling on deaf ears of some water retail companies.
Not only complaints remaining unresolved but as these situations continue business customers are now showing signs of loosing faith in the newly deregulated water retail market, but who is listening?
Certainly not some water retail firms it seems, according to leading water industry consultancy H20 Building Services.
“There are two water retail firms in particular that continue to send both incorrect water bills and demands for payments in advance of 5 months”
Castle Water. – Have been sending incorrect water bills for many months with no sign of improvement. In addition, demands for up to 5 months payments in advance for metered water charges for their Thames Water customers, together with threats of water supply disconnections sent direct to H20 clients sites, this has angered customers to the point where they have asked to switch water supplier.
Incorrect water bills are also arriving in larger numbers and although complaints have been sent to the firm the situation continues with no signs of abating.
It certainly appears that water retail companies are focusing on a “land grab” scenario in a fierce frenzied attempt to gain a larger market share of new customers out of area as opposed to concentrating on building a first class customer service and retailing existing customers and living up to their promises.
Water retail firms such as Water Plus which is a joint venture company with the two biggest players United Utilities and Severn Trent Water joining forces branded as Water Plus with a web strap-line “Looking for a refreshingly personal approach to water?”
All this has meant to some customers is pain and disruption to water budgets and environmental reporting strategies. According to the water bill validation team at H20 Building Services, some of their clients have not received correct water bills since water deregulation kicked off 1st April of this year.
The water bill validation team reports: –
“One of our large retail and manufacturing clients have not received correct water bills since April of this year.
Served by Water Plus the billing schedule with errors now stands at £300,000 and rising and after 8 months Water Plus seems incapable of rectifying the situation.
After sending letters to customer services and Sue Amies-King the companies Chief Executive pleading for her personal assistance and intervention in resolving these on going serious billing issues H20 have not received any replies. This is a quite staggering situation if a person at the top of the corporation ladder fails to reply to an official complaint then there is only one more course of action to take, the file will now have to be handed to the regulator OFWAT.