The water retail market was deregulated in April 2017 allowing non-household customers, such as businesses, charities, and public sector organizations to switch water suppliers, giving customers the freedom and choice to choose a different water supplier.
SwitchWaterSupplier.com
In August 2020, SwitchWaterSupplier.com was born, enabling none domestic customers to access the entire water retail market, to get a better deal on their water supply charges.
Bringing simplicity to the tender and switching process, and accessing the whole market allows all water retailers to bid for the business on a live tender platform.
SWS platform
At the end of the 60-minute process, a report is generated and sent to the customer listing the various bids
At the end of the 60-minute process, a report is generated and sent to the customer listing the various bids, the customer chooses their supplier and SwitchWaterSupplier.com facilitates the switch 'Switching made simple'.
The SWS platform, unlike a water energy broker, is independent, impartial, and transparent, and not tied to any one water retailer as say an agent. Brokers will generally only deal with two or three retailers or in some cases only one so the customer will only receive one maybe two pricing deals. This is of course not representative of the whole market and anti-competitive if there are 20+ water retailers.
Honest information
Why would a customer settle for a proposed deal from one supplier, when they can choose to go out to the whole market and obtain water supply proposals at the touch of a button in a structured competitive environment?
At the end of the day, the customer decides and has a choice, providing the broker has been honest in informing the customer that they are agents for only one or two specific water retailers, that is fine if not they must fully inform their customers.
energy and sustainability consultants
Energy and sustainability consultants recognize the benefits of independence and transparency
There are an increasing number of energy and sustainability consultants that are joining SWS as strategic partners which gives them free access to tender their client's water supply contracts on the SWS platform, they recognize the benefits of independence, impartiality, and transparency.
Also, other high-value benefits to customers which are not available from most energy consultants and brokers – water audits. They are conducted to identify savings and refunds due to historical billing errors.
Water audits
Water audits are an absolute must as water billing data is often incorrect, for example, a strategic partner that operates in the energy space uploaded the water billing data for a client in the North West, and the result was a saving of £3,800 a year for switching water supplier and during the process, a water audit revealed an annual over charge of £6,000 per year and a refund of £35,000.
Not only do customers benefit from switching they also benefit from auditing historical water data, ensuring the customers pay the correct charges going forwards and they can tap into further benefits such as water efficiency, water leak detection, and many other glasses of water and wastewater services focused on efficiency and cost reduction.
Benefits
The benefits of SwitchWaterSupplier.com to the water retail market are wide and varied for example: –
- Stimulating customer engagement with the water retail market, and in the process generating more businesses for water retailers.
- Assisting and advising customers on how to reduce water consumption and wastewater discharges, so that they can achieve their sustainability targets and ensure customers' charges are correct going forwards.
- Promoting water efficiency and carbon reduction.
- Helping the energy management sector engage with the water retail market by working together in strategic partnerships.
- In the process of switching water suppliers and auditing customer bills incorrect wholesale market data is being corrected ensuring customers are billed correctly by the water retail market going forwards.
- Upholding standards in the water retail market by adopting the regulator – OFWAT Principles for Voluntary Codes of Conduct and leading by example.