Levels of service
What we asked...
Should Icon Water improve its level of service for water supply disruptions and outages?
What you told us...
Current water supply disruptions were not an issue for the majority of customers.
- The Customer Advocacy Forum agreed that the current levels of service were satisfactory and that any reduction in service could result in long-term consequences for the network, despite some short-term cost savings. They were not in favour of a high investment due to the impact on vulnerable customers.
- After being informed of the current levels of service and the incidence of ‘customers at risk’ of issues, there was limited support in the deep-dive deliberative process for a $10 increase in charges to bring all customers up to a similar level of service. Most were satisfied with the current level of service.
- In the quantitative residential customer survey, when participants were asked to rate their support for maintenance upgrades in principle, without knowing the incidence of impacted properties or potential charges, support for more spend was mixed.
- Modelling of customer willingness to pay revealed that, after seeing a detailed explanation about the incidence of properties experiencing water supply disruptions/being told they were in an area at higher risk of a disruption, customers stated they would pay a median yearly amount for five years of $24 at the 50th percentile, $11.99 at the 60th percentile and $5.63 at the 70th percentile for all properties to have a more similar level of service for water supply.
What we asked...
Should Icon Water improve its level of service for wastewater disruptions and overflows?
What you told us...
Wastewater disruptions were not an issue for the majority of customers.
- The Customer Advocacy Forum focused on the issues of existing inequity to customers and the high cost to achieve greater equity in avoiding outages.
- In the quantitative residential customer survey, almost two-in-three supported maintenance upgrades in principle, prior to knowing the scale of impacted properties or potential charges.
- However, there was very limited support in the deep-dive deliberative process for a $100 increase in charges to bring all customers to a similar level of wastewater service. Most were satisfied with the current level of service.
- Modelling of customer willingness to pay revealed that, after seeing a detailed explanation about the incidence of properties experiencing wastewater overflows/being told they were in an area at higher risk of an overflow, customers stated they would pay a median yearly amount for five years of $29.13 at the 50th percentile, $16.09 at the 60th percentile and $8.43 at the 70th percentile for all properties to have a similar level of service to other properties for wastewater.