Castle Water’s key performance indicators for customer service in the quarter ending 31 March 2018 were:

  • Average call waiting times under 35 seconds
  • Castle Water handled 99,045 calls during the period
  • 98% of all inbound calls were answered.
  • 0.03% of calls had a waiting time in excess of 5 minutes. Only 1 call had a waiting time exceeding 10 minutes.

What customers think of Castle Water

Castle Water’s customer service is receiving significant numbers of positive reviews: 60% of Trust Pilot reviews during March scored Castle Water at either 4 or 5 stars. Castle Water’s website gives customers the flexibility at any time to set up a direct debit, give details of an office move, pay a bill, or request a copy invoice. The company’s web chat service also consistently receives 5 star reviews.

Customers choose to switch to Castle Water

Major multi-site customers who have been served by Castle Water in both Scotland and London have switched their services throughout England to Castle Water during the past quarter, covering banking, retail, charities and property management.

Castle Water customers benefit from market opening

The opening of the new market has delivered a range of benefits for Castle Water customers, including:

  • A £7m reduction in the wholesale charges paid by customers since the market opened with thousands more cases currently being processed
  • Castle Water has moved 50,000 customers to consolidated billing
  • Castle Water has shared the benefit with thousands of customers of more efficient payment, giving £50 cashback for customers switching to direct debit
  • Castle Water also donated £20,000 to Save the Children from customers switching to direct debit

Iain McPherson, Customer Services Director explains:

The water market has been open for 12 months. Customers can now see how an independent retailer can deliver benefits, ranging from cashback offers to our ability to successfully challenge wholesale prices. We are committed to delivering the best customer service in the sector, and with further investment underway in our customer services I am confident that this is within reach.

Gary Hinks, Commercial Director, continues:

As the largest independent water retailer in the UK, Castle Water is uniquely qualified to ensure customers are paying the lowest possible prices for their water supplies, and has the resources to hold wholesalers to account. For many of our customers, we are now delivering savings backdated over several months or even years. This kind of saving cannot be delivered overnight but has a long-term benefit which can be maintained by the customer even after switching to another retailer.

Further improvements to come over the next quarter

Castle Water is continuing to invest in further improving customer service:

  • We have collated customer feedback on our bill formats over the past year, and will shortly start using a new design, aimed at making our bills easier to understand
  • A new call centre will open in May
  • We are working with Thames Water to offer Smarter Business visits to customers to provide free advice on water management and efficiency
  • Our new online account management system is currently being trialled

What else we can do to help

We can also offer a range of services to help manage water usage including:

  • Efficiency audits
  • Leak detection
  • Automatic meter reading equipment
  • Emergency/standby water