Help shape our future plan
Have your say
Opportunities to have your say through our surveys are now closed. If you're a lucky winner, we'll be emailing you soon.
We're listening
We’re listening to our customers feedback every day as we work to drive continuous improvement. We use these insights to find new ways to provide value to our customers and improve the customer experience.
In addition to our day to day engagement every 5 years we engage with customers across our service region to understand what they value and what might matter most to them in the future. We use this feedback to create a plan for our services and prices, which we present to independent regulator, the Essential Services Commission.
Every piece of feedback helps us shape our plan..
What we've heard
In March, over 180 customers shared their experiences and expectations of us in the future in our series of online public workshops and focus groups.
A snapshot of what the customers we spoke to said
- Customer experience was a clear strength of ours, specifically, they were delighted when we responded quickly and efficiently to water leaks, emergency works and complaints and when we provided friendly, helpful and professional customer service and were easy to deal with
- Not charging too much or not providing enough information about their bill and water usage were most often mentioned as something they have been disappointed with
- Customers said they expect South East Water to focus on providing accurate and affordable bills, and financial support when they need it and to incentivise them and help them to save water
- They were clear that they expect us not to increase prices or have high fixed charges, or be unreliable and inconvenience them
- When looking to the future and talking about what we should be doing in 2030, customers in these workshops said they expect us to provide education around water use and provide devices and tools to help them to save water
- Customers want to see us sending less paper bills and communications, and don’t want us to reduce water quality standards.
We will continue to reach out to customers and ask for feedback. Here’s a brief overview of what’s coming next:
How your feedback will help shape our plan
We are living in rapidly changing times and it’s incredibly important that we understand what our customers expect from us. This conversation will be led by our customers and we’ll create opportunities to hear whatever they want to tell us. Our engagement program is designed to respond to what customers want, rather than pre-defining questions and topics we want input on.
We promise to:
- Make it easy for customers to have their say
- Build on what customers have already told us
- Provide customers with the information they need to make decisions
- Let customers lead the discussion
- Record all inputs and feedback
- Share what we hear with customers
- Ensure our price submission reflects what the community wants as much as possible
- Be clear about where community recommendations have influenced our price submission
- Be clear where we can’t incorporate a recommendation and explain why
- Update customers throughout the process.
What happened last time - our 2018-23 Price Submission
Across 14 months, in person and online, our customers told us a consistent story about what they expect from us and what they value. Their feedback and ideas shaped our plan (endorsed by the Essential Services Commission) and our commitment to five key customer outcomes. Read more and see how we’re tracking here.