South Staffs Water enjoyed the occasion of meeting some of its customers in its new media van and raise awareness of its environmental protection scheme at the Staffordshire County Show last week (30-31 May). The company also took the opportunity to carry out some research about its customer promises via voting boxes, which encouraged people to have their say.

As one of the main sponsors of the show, South Staffs Water was able to bring its new media van, tractor and Mzuri seed drill onto the showground, and it was positioned near the main arena. Recently delivered, the media van has been specially designed to highlight the company’s key messages, including things around the benefits of having a water meter fitted and top tips for wise water usage. In addition, South Staffs Water used the show as an opportunity to highlight its SPRING 2 initiative to local farmers.

SPRING2 is a new environmental protection scheme set up by South Staffs Water to support farmers in the Blithe catchment area willing to explore catchment-friendly land management. It is open to both arable and livestock farmers, whose farms have high risk fields.

South Staffs Water has engaged with 20,000 customers over the past 18 months. This engagement has been really valuable in understanding the things that matter to customers. It has enabled the company to define a set of promises that reflect what is important to them. Visitors at the show were asked to vote on the key themes of these promises, which are:

• delivering excellent customer service
• working in our communities
• protecting the environment
• delivering secure and reliable water supplies and
• making sure we have a resilient business.

The results from the voting will help validate the findings so far. It also supports further customer engagement before the company’s business plan is submitted to the regulator Ofwat in September.

Phil Newland, managing director at South Staffs Water explains: “The Staffordshire County Show is always a fantastic event and over 40,000 people visited the show over the two days. We were proud to be one of the key sponsors this year and attending the show provided us with a unique platform to highlight one of our more focused environmental protection schemes directly to the people who might be interested in getting involved.

“It was also a great opportunity to engage with our customers and find out what’s most important to them. I am delighted that over 300 people took the opportunity to cast their vote.”

You can find more information on South Staffs Water or its SPRING2 initiative here.