Customer Experience in the Water Sector - Future Customer Performance Commitment and Service Incentive Mechanism (SIM) Review

The overall objective of the work is to identify and evaluate alternative approaches to measure, evaluate and compare company performance in terms of customer service, satisfaction, trust and confidence. Scope and key tasks The Contractor will be expected to: 1. Identify/confirm the main challenges of the current SIM as a measure of company performance in terms of customer service, customer satisfaction and customer complaints. 2. Assess complementarity of current SIM against existing common Performance Commitments (potentially informed by our initial quantitative analysis).  3. Identify the outcomes which could be measured (eg. customer service, satisfaction, trust, confidence), set out the interactions between these, and identify options for measurement. 4. Identify/confirm evaluation factors. 5. Assess options for measurement against the evaluation criteria, and produce a shortlist of recommended measures. 6. Consider the possible governance / funding models for the options. We welcome views on different or additional steps we would need to consider to ensure we meet our objective. Key Outputs and Deliverables Interim outputs • We expect to see interim outputs associated with the different key tasks set out in part 3 above. • Subject to project set-up discussions, this can be eg. in PowerPoint format and be part of the ongoing project management and progress update meetings. Draft Report • At the end of the research the Contractor will be required to produce a draft report for the Customer by an agreed date. The Contractor should factor in sufficient resource to meet the production of multiple iterations of the draft report if necessary. • The Customer will comment on the draft reports by agreed dates. Final Report • The Contractor will then be required to produce a final full report for the Customer which will address the Customer’s feedback on the draft report. The report will need to include overall conclusions and recommendations. • The Contractor should provide, as an appendix to the final report, all relevant supporting evidence underpinning the report’s main conclusions. This needs to include relevant interview notes, bibliography etc. Findings slide package • The Contractor will also be required to present the report’s key findings in a PowerPoint/infographics format, for use by Ofwat as needed. 