Exceeding Customer Side Leakage targets with Thames Water

Each year, our team investigates around 6,000 potential leaks and repairs 2,500–3,000 where leakage is proven.

Situation:

Since 2018, our M Group Water team has been delivering Customer Side Leakage (CSL) services for Thames Water across London and the Thames Valley. The CSL programme focuses on managing water leaks from the outside stop valve to the inside stop valve, tackling issues identified through smart meter data.

Challenge:

Thames Water’s ambitious targets meant the delivery team needed to achieve consistently throughout each month, while delivering exceptional customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

With growing coverage areas and the complexity of modern urban infrastructure, we needed to identify and manage leaks accurately and quickly.

The challenge extended to maintaining a customer satisfaction score of 9.5 out of 10 while scaling up operations to meet programme requirements.

Solution:

Our approach to CSL is driven by a detailed customer journey and a highly systemised process. Leveraging smart meter technology, our technicians receive hourly data to distinguish between leakage and high usage on customer supply pipes.

 The programme operates within Thames Water’s broader Customer Programme framework, installing 20,000 smart meters per month and maintaining 26,000 acoustic loggers.

Innovation was at the heart of our solution. We introduced Drainaway, a technology used during proving appointments, enabling our operatives to pinpoint leak locations, whether above or below ground. Alongside thermal imaging cameras to detect temperature anomalies, technicians can identify leaks faster and more accurately. With around 300 technicians and a call centre team of 50, the programme is supported end-to-end.

Daniel Murley, Project Manager at M Group Water, said: “The Smart Customer Side Leakage Project has been a remarkable success. Smart metering technology has transformed how we locate, manage, and repair leaks, allowing us to detect and measure actual leakage in litres rather than estimates.”

Result

The impact of our CSL service has been significant. We’ve exceeded monthly targets and by using enhanced resources and innovation, we’ve delivered high customer satisfaction on behalf of Thames Water.

Customer feedback has included:

“Thames Water engineer Nadir came to investigate a persistent leak identified by our new water meter and was extremely polite, friendly and thorough. He made sure that I clearly understood each step of the testing. Nadir is an outstanding ambassador for the company,  a true professional!”