In these challenging and uncertain times, it’s never been more important for businesses and organisations to choose a water retailer they can trust. At Wave, we believe in supporting the best possible outcome for our customers, and that’s why we’re delighted to say we’ve won Water Retailer of the Year at the Water Industry Awards 2023. This is our second win of this award in the last three years.
Our entry covered four key areas: customer service, positive environmental impact, innovation, and people. The judges were particularly impressed by “the focus on colleagues’ welfare, as well as clear and demonstrable efforts to innovate and improve customer service.”
Our commitment to customer service
Our customers have benefitted from an enhanced level of service that we’re consistently striving to improve. Since last year, we’ve:
- Reduced wait times for calls and email responses
- Provided advice and instructions for businesses facing financial difficulty
- Achieved an excellent rating on Trustpilot and positive net promoter score
- Added new ways to get in touch so customers can choose which one works for them.
Our positive impact on the environment
Our employee-led Social and Sustainability Promise shapes how we plan to positively impact our planet, people, company, and customers and communities. We’ve:
- Arranged corporate volunteering days across the country, where we were joined by employees, customers and TPIs
- Committed to water, waste and carbon objectives to respond to the climate emergency
- Partnered with SaveMoneyCutCarbon to support our customers’ net zero journeys
- Embedded our employee volunteering platform Alaya
- Introduced one paid volunteering day a year for employees
- Provided mentoring and careers advice to secondary schools in the North East
- Launched a marketing campaign focused on the importance of saving water, encouraging customers to check for leaks and minimise water waste
Our industry leading innovation
We understand how much technology and innovation shapes the water industry, and that’s why we:
- Issue High Consumption Alerts to our large customers so they can act quickly to reduce water waste
- Submitted two successful bids to the Market Improvement Fund, both of which are designed to tackle challenging industry issues for retailers, wholesalers and business customers
Our investment in our people
At Wave, our people are at the heart of everything we do, and succeeding together is one of our core values. We’ve committed to improving their skills, safety and wellbeing by:
- Integrating an award-winning wellbeing offering
- Hosting regular employee-led health, safety & wellbeing forums and speakers on nutrition, menopause, suicide prevention and many others
- Introducing a loneliness tackling buddy system
- Bringing in psychologists to train our people managers on mental health issues, and our HR and managers in neurodiverse conditions such as ADHD and autism
- Introducing two weeks paid miscarriage leave in 2022
- Launching Parent Coaching, which helps working parents prepare for parenthood
- Running voluntary financial education webinars to help those struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and their finances. This had a 78% uptake.
Our win in this category speaks to our passion and drive to make a positive difference to our customers, our people and the environment and community. If you’re looking for a water retailer you can trust, switch to us today.
