Retail performance

We provide business customers with information on water retail service providers' performance, including customer complaints. We collect this information from customer complaints made directly to providers and those reported to us.

How we measure performance

We use two complaint sources to gain insight into the performance of companies;

complaints received directly by retailers; and
complaints raised directly to CCW about companies.

To make sure complaints are fair for all retailers, we use something called a Supply Point ID (SPID). The measure we use to do this is ‘complaints per 10,000 supply points’. For example:

Total complaints: 600
Total supply points: 4,000,000
Complaints per 10,000 supply points = 600/4,000,000 x 10,000 = 1.5

How we compare performance

We recognise that for smaller retailers, each complaint can make performance appear disproportionately poor. We categorise retailers based upon their size in the following way;

smaller retailers – less than 5,000 supply points; and
larger retailers – more than 5,000 supply points.

In this industry, almost 99% of it is controlled by big retailers. Complaints about smaller retailers are quite rare, with only five reported to CCW in 2023-24. Because of this, we handle larger retailers separately from the smaller ones. We use the median and quartiles as our main ways to understand trends among the big retailers. When it comes to the smaller retailers, we rely more on detailed explanations and stories to analyse what’s happening.

We measure performance by complaints per 10,000 SPIDs and colour code them as follows:

How we measure
Good
Better than median*
Worse than median*
Poor

*Median – a mid-point of the data set, or a middle value in the list of numbers that are arranged by highest to lowest.

Please not that the data in publication is unaudited and is subject to change at the end of the year.

Larger retailer’s performance in 2024-25 (April to December 2024)

Company	Number of SPIDs	Total complaints per 10,000 SPIDs	Complaints to CCW per 10,000 SPIDs
ADSM	11927	0.0	0.84
Business Stream	388926	57.18	4.65
Castle Water	466917	90.06	10.99
Clear Business Water	26246	157.36	8.76
Dŵr Cymru**	195052	39.94	0.41
Everflow	171437	21.06	3.38
Hafren Dyfrdwy**	10006	8.99	1.00
Pozitive Water Limited	12201	7.38	0.00
SES Business Water	36371	177.61	14.85
Smarta Water	5570	0.0	3.59
Source for Business	152774	15.38	3.34
Water Plus	703257	68.25	5.10
Water2Business	178694	16.51	0.56
Wave	391796	35.71	3.22

**Only business customers in Wales who use 50 megalitres of water per year are allowed to access the retail market and choose their water retailer. The above numbers for Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and Hafren Dyfrdwy relates to the total number of SPIDs and not just those in the open retail market. The majority of business customers in Wales continue to receive retail services from Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water or Hafren Dyfrdwy.

Small retailers’ performance in 2024-25 (April to December 2024)

We’re unable to colour code small retailers’ performance due to small number of complaints.

Company	Number of SPIDs	Complaints to retailer	Complaints to CCW
ConservAqua	3,543	Total complaints: 10 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 28.23	Total complaints: 1 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 2.82
The Water Retail Company	1,597	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0
Veolia Retail	664	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0	Total complaints: 0 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 0.0
Yu Water	1,152	Total complaints: 5 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 43.39	Total complaints: 11 Complaints per 10,000 supply points: 95.46

Complaint trend

Below, you’ll find graphs that track how retailer complaint trends changed over time. One graph shows complaints received by retailers per 10,000 supply points, while the other illustrates complaints reported directly to CCW per 10,000 supply points.

We can’t show complaint trends for small retailers, because we received very few complaints from them.