Key successes during the year included the number of complaints we received falling by 19 per cent and our call centre being named one of the top 50 in the UK by Call Centre Focus magazine.

We passed follow-up audits by the British Standards Institution after receiving ISO 9001 Quality Management accreditation for continuous improvement in the way in which we deal with our customers.

We merged our billing, technical and metering contact centres and multi-skilled the teams to deal with all types of customer queries during the first call.

Our customer agents spent time working alongside our operational staff on the road to help the agents better understand customers’ needs when talking to them on the phone.

In addition, we set up a dedicated team to support customers who are moving home and we strengthened our relationships with other companies supplying water to our wastewater customers to improve the accuracy and timing of bills.

Our good work meant the Consumer Council for Water (CCWater), which acts as the customer watchdog, had no reason to carry out investigations into the way we dealt with customer queries or complaints during the year.