Wessex and Portsmouth top C-MeX table while Severn Trent leads on D-MeX

Wessex Water has reporting topping the C-MeX table for large water and sewerage companies in the new customer experience scheme’s first year.

Wessex said water-only company Portsmouth Water finished in first place in 2020-21, with Wessex in overall second but leading the large water and sewerage companies.

C-MeX came into effect in April 2020, replacing the Service Incentive Mechanism as a new measure of assessing how both customers and the wider public rate each company. Companies are scored based on two separate surveys – one from customers who have been in contact and the other from a wider group who haven’t.

Wessex Water’s chief executive, Colin Skellett, said: “This excellent result has been achieved by the hard work of colleagues who regularly go above and beyond to give the best customer experience and the proactive way we are engaging with communities across our region. We’re particularly proud that this top performance has been maintained throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Meanwhile, Severn Trent reported it had topped the D-MeX table, which tracks developer satisfaction with water companies. Head of developer services at Severn Trent, Steve Betteridge, said: “A lot of thought, planning and effort has gone into improving the service we offer our developer customers, so it’s great to see all of this hard work get the recognition it deserves. Some of the steps we’ve taken include trying to understand our customers more. We’ve developed tailored customer journeys, whether they’re one-off customers who are developing a property, right through to major housing developers.” He added: “We took the decision to bring certain teams in-house to gain more visibility and control over the whole customer journey and introduced new and improved technology for customers to benefit from.”

Ofwat has shared the C-MeX and D-MeX results with the industry but is not expected to publish them until later this year.