Improving outcomes for customers through hardship and communications reviews
30 March 2026
At Greater Western Water, we’re committed to improving outcomes for our customers, learning from experts and delivering on the actions outlined in our enforceable undertaking with the Essential Services Commission.
As part of this commitment, we recently engaged external consultants to do two reviews; one into our hardship grants program and another into how we communicate with our customers.
We’re sharing the key insights and recommendations from both reviews to be transparent about where we have good foundations in place, and we can improve.
We accept the findings and are committed to acting on the recommendations for an improved end-to-end customer experience. This work includes deepening our understanding of our communities’ needs and taking a more customer-centric approach to how we support each and every GWW customer.
Review into hardship grants program
Uniting Vic Tas (Uniting) has completed the review into our hardship grants program, which looked into the framework, policies and processes we use to support customers experiencing hardship, and opportunities to expand our response to vulnerability.
The review found that while we have a committed and caring workforce, strong foundations in our support model and well-trained specialist teams to respond to vulnerable customers, there’s more we can do.
Uniting have provided us with a number of recommendations designed to strengthen our overall approach to vulnerability and hardship in relation to systems, staff capability, communication and governance, so that customers receive safe, fair and reliable services and support.
Review into communications framework
Scyne Advisory has completed the review into our customer communications framework. As part of the review, Scyne engaged with six community sector organisations to understand the diverse needs of our customers and community.
The review found that while some teams have guidance, GWW does not have a single, enterprise-wide customer communications framework.
Scyne Advisory have provided us with recommendations designed to improve data accuracy, better track communications performance, centralise communications content internally, gather customer feedback and implement a company-wide communications framework.
Next steps
The changes we need to make won’t happen overnight, but we’re committed to doing better, including strengthening existing processes.
We continue to deliver on the other commitments we made in the enforceable undertaking, including providing $130 million in credits and waived charges to our most impacted customers.
We’ve already provided credits to thousands of customers as we deliver our catch up billing program, which aims to bring everyone back onto a regular billing cycle.
Thank you to everyone who continues to support and challenge us as we work to earn and rebuild trust.
