Water company reduces billing inaccuracy to 0.15%

Bills for metered customers of a major water company have hit their target for accuracy six months after implementing identity management services. Severn Trent Water has worked with GB Group to achieve compliance with OFWAT’s  DG8 meter reading regulation and has hit 99.85 per cent accuracy for billing.

With 1.2 million consumer water meters to read each year, STW needed to test a solution that would allow it to accurately address customers and optimise its meter reading activity. PAF matching, geo-coding and grouping have allowed for optimal routing, leading to a halving of unsequenced reads.

“To provide excellent customer service, our target is to read all meters at least once a year as this means customers are being billed accurately,” says Con Rooney, STW’s general manager of customer relations field services. “With up to 60,000 new meters being installed every year, it is a significant challenge with multiple variables.”

“GB was the only supplier willing to get out there with our meter readers to view the challenges first-hand,” adds Rooney. “By using GB’s Identity Management services and providing optimised meter reading routing, we were able to comply with regulatory requirements and achieve our target of reading and billing 99.85% of our metered consumers during the six-month period.”