Businesses switched off on water

Opinion Research Services (ORS), which was commissioned by Ofwat to conduct a telephone survey in 2021 to gauge business customer views of the retail market, has warned that ascertaining business customer opinion is likely to continue to be difficult for some time.

The researcher pointed to Covid-19 experiences, trading pressures and the growth of home working as potential reasons why the participation rate in its 2021 survey “may have been as little as half of what it had been, when we undertook the same survey in 2019”. It said it had to scale back its original sample target of 1,000 interviews to 700 “due to the considerable difficulties experienced in engaging organisations”.

ORS pointed out: “At the time of writing, it seems likely that the difficulties described above in relation to contacting businesses will (to a greater or less extent) remain an ongoing issue throughout 2022, and potentially well beyond this point, and consideration will need to be given to any future research with the sector.”

The survey findings, which fed into Ofwat’s 2021 State of the Market report, included the following:

• satisfaction – business customer satisfaction with their current retailer dropped from 78% in 2020 to 73% in 2021, and dissatisfaction increased from 6% in 2020 to 17%. The reason given most frequently for dissatisfaction was billing issues (65%), followed by issues around customer service (45%) and metering (34%).

• awareness – 43% were aware they could switch in 2021 compared with 58% in 2020.

• engagement – 8.5% were active in the last 12 months, broadly in line with the year before. 1.7% switched and 2.2% renegotiated.