Scottish Water ‘Doing everything possible’ to cope with the effects of the thaw
Written by author on December 28, 2010
Scottish Water says it is continuing to deploy all its resources in its callcentre and in the field to deal with the effects of the extreme weather on the water infrastructure.
The water utility is keeping customers informed through their website and has deployed extra call-centre staff to answer customer calls.
Yesterday (27th December) Scottish Water’s callcentre took over 7,000 calls in a 24-hour period – and around 75% of the calls are customers seeking advice on internal burst or frozen pipes in their homes or business.
Scottish Water is helping out by pointing customers towards www.scottishwater.co.uk/warmpipes where customers can watch videos that detail how to protect internal pipes and also how to locate their nearest plumber for internal repairs. Customers can also help by reporting visible bursts in the public network directly to our Customer Helpline on 0845 601 8855.
Peter Farrer, Scottish Water’s Customer Service Delivery Director said:
“I would like to reassure customers that Scottish Water is doing everything possible to deal with the effects of the extreme weather.
“We have drafted in extra resources into our contact centre and in the field, however over 19,000 calls have been received since Christmas Eve and this has impacted on our normally high levels of service. We want to apologise to customers who have had difficulty reaching us.
“Around 75% of the calls are related to frozen or burst pipes in the customer’s home rather than on our public network.
“We are giving as much assistance as we can to customers and we are directing them to our website – www.scottishwater.co.uk/warmpipes – to get useful information on how to deal with frozen or burst internal pipes, and how to locate your nearest plumber.
“We are calling on customers to check their holiday homes, garages, outbuildings, vacant commercial premises and any other unattended properties for internal leaking pipes.”
“We are aware that we may be taking longer to answer some calls or respond to appeals for help. For this we apologise and thank our customers for their patience as we work to deal with all these issues.”
