Community hub shortlisted for awards
We’re a finalist in two awards for the work we do at our community hub in Wednesbury.
Utility Week awards
The Utility Week Awards are the gold standard of achievement, rewarding and celebrating outstanding performance and innovation across all utilities.
Our community hub is a finalist in two categories; ‘Community Initiative of the Year’ and ‘Customer Care’.
The ‘Community Initiative of the Year’ recognises an initiative, which makes a significant contribution to communities and benefits the recipients far more than the image of the company.
The ‘Customer Care’ category recognises utilities organisations, which demonstrate a true understanding of their customers’ wants and needs as well as a genuine commitment throughout the business to delivering this.
Rachael Merrell, head of retail customer services at South Staffs Water, said:
We originally set up our community hub as an easy and informal way for local people to talk to us and to find out more about their water. It’s developed into so much more with community groups using the hub almost every day. We’re so pleased to be a finalist in these awards, along with our colleagues at Echo Managed Services. It recognises all the work our hub team put in, to ensure that local people get the support they need and access to so much more.
The winners will be announced on 9 December.
Institute of Customer Service awards
The UK Customer Satisfaction Awards are the only customer service awards run by the professional body for customer service and are judged by industry experts, business leaders and academics.
Our hub is shortlisted in the 'Customer Satisfaction Innovation of the Year' category and we'll find out if we've won in March 2020.
Community hub
Our community hub was created as a trusted, friendly and accessible location for customers to interact with us and other support agencies.
Working in partnership with customer service partner, Echo, we opened the community hub on Wednesbury high street, at the heart of one of our most socially deprived areas.
Working with over 200 regional organisations and charities, we noted a growing shortage of easily accessible services. We decided to create a space, open all week, to work for the whole community.
Beyond engaging hard-to-reach customers, our hub has impacted on customers’ lives in many ways outside our original scope and our remit as a water company.
Find out more about our community hub.