Customer

Providing a good service to our customers is a priority for us. During 2007, in our regulated business, our customer service performance significantly improved. We achieved an overall customer satisfaction score of 73 per cent for the year, which represents a five per cent increase on the annual figure for 2006/07 and is the best its been for some years.

We have introduced new state-of-the-art systems to improve our call handling and produced a clearer, more informative style bill, responding to customer feedback. During the year, an additional 35,000 customers took advantage of our free meter installation service and nearly half of our domestic customers benefited from our £5 saving by switching to direct debit.

We also continue to assist our water customers who are in serious financial difficulty by offering schemes such as WaterSure, Water Direct, United Utilities Arrears Allowance Scheme and the United Utilities Trust Fund.

We aim to improve further, with a target of 90 per cent customer satisfaction by 2010. We're now focusing on increasing the customer contact dealt with in one call, getting it 'right first time' and, where further work is needed, making resolution faster.