industry average customer satisfaction score in 2024-25, the lowest point since Ofwat introduced the measure in 2020. Every company in the sector performed worse than in year one.
Record investment. High bills. Unprecedented dissatisfaction.
Spending billions on assets won't move the scores that set your returns. Firstsource Consulting transforms the operation behind them.
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Why this matters now
What's breaking utilities customer trust
Three forces every utility operations leader is navigating right now.
Eroding customer satisfaction
73.99
Ofwat C-Mex and D-Mex Annual Report, 2025
Record high billing complaints
130k
billing-related complaints recorded in 2024-25, the single biggest driver of customer dissatisfaction across the entire water sector. Billing accounts for more than 60% of all complaints.
Ofwat Water Company Performance Report, 2024-25
Broken customer contact
51%
of customers describe contacting their water company as time-consuming and difficult. Only 16% felt strongly satisfied with communication. Repeat contacts compound cost and regulatory risk.
Ofwat Billing Journeys Interim Report, May 2025
Our solutions
Every solution, built for utilities
Six practices designed to improve the metrics that matter most to regulators and customers.
Customer experience redesign
We redesign billing, service, and complaint touchpoints to resolve issues before customers escalate and regulators identify repeat failures.
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Redesign the workflows and processes
We redesign case management, billing, and field dispatch workflows to eliminate unnecessary handoffs, reduce case bounce, and prevent revenue leakage.
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Target operating model design
We define how regulated utilities operate efficiently and compliantly at scale in an AI-native operating world.
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Client story
Transformation program launched with 18 intervention points for major UK water utilities
Process mining across 139,000 cases surfaced revenue leakage and systemic rework across billing and case management, forming the evidence base for an 18-intervention transformation program.
The process redesign included billing journey redesign, case routing and rework reduction, complaint handling workflow, contact center modernization, field dispatch coordination, and agentic AI enablement across board.
The process redesign included billing journey redesign, case routing and rework reduction, complaint handling workflow, contact center modernization, field dispatch coordination, and agentic AI enablement across board.
£354k+
revenue leakage identified
How we work
Transform. Implement. Operate.
Three phases run as one continuous motion, designed for the regulated pace of utilities.
Build a digital twin of your utility customer operations
Map case management, billing, and field dispatch end-to-end, benchmark against regulated peers, and surface where revenue leaks and customers escalate.
Process mining and diagnostic
- Digital process twin of your case management system
- Contact inflow analysis identifying avoidable follow-ups, their drivers, and the cost of not fixing them
- Billing and complaint journey mapping
- Satisfaction and sentiment analysis using interaction data
Build the interventions that move regulatory scores
Turn the diagnostic into a defined transformation program: a future-state utility operation across billing, case management, and field dispatch, built from process-mining evidence rather than assumption, with a business case the regulator, the board, and the CFO can all defend.
Requirements and business case
- Future-state requirements built from the process-mining evidence base
- Prioritized intervention roadmap with sequencing logic,
- Business case with ROI model
- Success metrics tied directly to your regulatory performance commitments
Architecture and experience design
- Billing and complaint journey redesign
- Case management and field dispatch redesign
- Contact center modernization
- Future-state operating model across people, process, technology, and governed AI
Run the utility operations we designed together
Sustain operational gains, with the same team accountable for cost and revenue outcomes from diagnostic through steady state.
Lead, land, and run
- Change and adoption management across contact center, field, and back-office teams, so the redesign holds under live volume
- Regulatory performance tracking across customer satisfaction (C-Mex), developer services (D-Mex), complaint-handling times, and contact volumes, reported against the business case at agreed cadence
- Transition to steady-state operations
TESTIMONIALS
Firstsource CX strategy deliverable was super comprehensive and thorough, one of the best I have seen.
What Firstsource Consulting provides is a team of experts who can be real partners with us in driving innovation.
Firstsource's consulting deliverable is at par, if not better, than any Big 4 consulting company deliverable.
INSIGHTS
Latest from the Firstsource team
Insights from the field, real operations, real outcomes, and perspectives from the people making it work in live operations.
Case Study
How a multi-state US electric utility accelerated $305M through digital outreach
A large, multi-state US electric utility partnered with Firstsource to modernize its collections and customer outreach operations through digital communications. The objective was to supplement existing mailed and field-based processes with timely, electronic outreach that could expand customer response windows, encourage self-serve payments, and reduce reliance on field activity.
Contact Us
Start with discovery
- Rapid diagnostics: AI maturity mapped across your operations.
- Expedited benchmarking: Your position versus vertical peers.
- Fastracked roadmap: Where Kairos creates the most value, first.