Water load of rubbish! (Southern Water)

Member Name: fruityzo

Product:	Southern Water
Date:	05/07/09 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Consistent supply, no complains over quality.

Disadvantages: Dreadful admin organisation, constant substantial charge increases.

More and more so nowadays we have the opportunity to change utility providers if we are not happy with their service. However, with water companies, that luxury has yet to be afforded to us as consumers.

In the region that I live (Southern Hampshire), I have to have 2 water companies supply my property. One of these is Southern Water.

The blurb (from the S.W website):

"Southern Water supplies fresh, quality drinking water to more than one million households and treats and recycles wastewater from nearly two million households across Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Each day we supply 555 million litres of drinking water from our 90 water treatment works along more than 13,600 kilometres of water mains to our customers' taps."

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SUPPLY:

I cannot say that I have ever had an issue with my water services; it is always there when I need it.
Luckily, we have never had the issue of leaks or burst pipes that would warrant us getting in touch with SW. Therefore I cannot provide any insight into this area of their service (and in all honesty, hope I never have to).

We live in a hard water area, and as explained on the SW website [southernwater.co.uk], there can occasionally be a 'strange' taste to your water (which we're told, is nothing to worry about if that is the case). However, I'm pleased to say, I've never felt the quality of my water to be compromised, so in this respect, I'm very much happy with the supply side of things.

BILLING:

The billing side of the company, is in my opinion, where they fall down greatly.

Without going into reams of detail and allowing this review to turn into a personal rant; there were two notable occasions where they got the billing side of things very wrong, and both have stuck in my mind.

I have always received a paper bill from SW, which contains the usual details and a break down of your water charges. It also gives you the option to pay the amount in full, or split the bill into two (e.g. pay for 6 months, rather than the full year). This bill is usually sent a month or so in advance before the payment is due, which in theory, should give you enough time to arrange your payment.

I will not list all the payment methods, but put it this way... they will pretty much take any form of payment (within the law obviously!), so part-Exing Granny to pay off your bill is a no-no I'm afraid!

My problem with billing occurred when I was sent a 'red' (as in you're overdue) bill, dated from around 3 weeks previously, claiming that this was a final reminder for payment.

In a bit of a flap, I called their customer care line to see what on earth was going on (I'm always extremely careful not to miss any bills, so was rather confused).
I got through to an adviser fairly quickly, and after a brief explanation of my situation, I was told that an initial bill was sent out on 'X' date, and that I had not paid, therefore making my account overdue.
When explaining to the adviser that the ONLY bill I had been sent was the one with said date on it, this lead to further confusion, general gist of conversation;

employee: "You didn't pay when you received it so it's not our fault."
me: "I only received it today, and the FIRST bill you send me is a FINAL reminder, so how could I have paid it?"
employee: "Why have you only received today?"
me: "I don't know, that's why I'm on the phone to you..."

This carried on, and after speaking to 2 other people, they finally relented and agreed that my account was actually not overdue at all. Great.

ADMIN/ORGANISATION:

Obviously the aforementioned 'billing' section does not bode well for their handling of their customer's information.

* The first ever correspondence from SW had me down as a 'Mr', (I'm pleased to say I'm confident of my gender), so I can assure you it should definitely have been a 'Miss'! There was also the added delight of my forename and surname being incorrectly spelled. After 2 phone calls this was fixed.

* On moving house (and informing them of my moving date, and new address), I find my new bill arrived in good time, at my new property. However, I'd had another sex-change, and now appeared to be a male again. Along with another bizarre surname variation. Fixed in 1 phone call this time (improving?!).

* Having been in my new property well over a month, imagine my surprise when I find a (final 'red') bill for my previous property land on the door mat (postal redirection; couldn't be without it when moving!), even though I had settled the account whilst setting up my new details.
Same drill; call up; explain situation; speak to various people; get accused of lying about moving...

Needless to say I finally settled the matter, but to do so I ended up paying some silly admin fee of around £5 to guarantee the old account was closed. I had no idea what it was for, but had genuinely lost the will to battle with the seemingly incompetent staff and/or administration system that was in place.

WEBSITE:

At the time of the majority of these issues, I did not have access to the internet, so I cannot comment on how efficiently they run the website (with regards to 'contacting us').

The site itself is very informative and easy to navigate, and includes lots of downloadable leaflets detailing all aspects of their water supply, methods, etc.

There are sections where you can tell them if you are moving, or need to ammend your details, and so forth.

Although I have no confidence in the ability in the customer relations side of this company, I would suggest that should you ever need to contact them regarding anything important, that it would probably make more sense to try and conduct all correspondence through the website.
This way you at least have hard proof of any 'conversations' that may take place, and hopefully you will avoid being given the runaround the way I have many many times with Southern Water!

CONCLUSION:

As I generally have no choice over the fact that SW supply my property, I find their downfalls with regards to the admin side appalling.
However, this doesn't surprise me a great deal, because if a company knows they have your business regardless, I'd imagine that they are less likely to focus so much on all elements of customer service, just because they can.

As I have mentioned, I do appreciate the fact that my water never appears to have any 'nasties' in it or be of what I would deem 'substandard' quality.

I do wish however, that water companies did not have an area monopoly, thus being able to charge whatever they like (in some cases, the percentage increases that they are allowed to add to bills every year seem ludicrous to me)!

Like it or lump it!

Summary: If you don't like it, you'd better move!