Complaints Fatigue

CCW wishes to appoint a market research agency to conduct two surveys and follow-up depth interviews The research would comprise interviews with respondents from one of the first two surveys.

1. an online survey emailed out by water companies to customers who complained to them, and did not contact them again after the water company's response (Stage 1 complaints) or who did re-contact their company about their Stage 1 response and received a follow up reply from the company (Stage 2 response), but did not make further contact after that.

We want to understand why customers, who say they were dissatisfied with the first or second responses to their complaint, did not escalate their complaint further to the company or come to CCW.

2. a telephone survey, to get a representative sample of water bill-payers in England and Wales, asking a handful of questions to find out if they feel they have had reason to complain to their water and sewerage company, but have not done so, and why this is 3.

Depth interviews with a selection of respondents to the online survey who feel their complaint was not resolved by their water company's response, but who did not contact their company again to follow up.