Sydney Water has been named Australia’s most trusted utilities brand in the 2024 Roy Morgan Trusted Brand Awards.
Sydney Water’s Managing Director, Roch Cheroux said he’s proud to accept the prestigious honour on behalf of Sydney Water staff.
“We wouldn’t be Sydney Water without our customers, who are at the heart of everything we do,” Mr Cheroux said.
“We’ve spent the past decade understanding and responding to what our customers really need and value, and being named the most trusted utility brand in Australia is a great honour and testament to the hard work and dedication of every one of our team.”
Sydney Water launched its biggest ever customer engagement initiative – Our Water, Our Voice – over two years ago, connecting with more than 13,000 customers to find out their priorities and expectations. These insights have been used to shape long-term planning and business strategies, said Mr Cheroux.
Sydney Water has also invested significantly in customer-first initiatives, including cost-of-living programs like pensioner and concession rebates, BillAssist schemes and WaterFix programs, which deliver discounted water efficiency checks and plumbing repairs to help customers save water in their homes, schools and businesses, he said.
“By directly connecting with our customers not only were we able to empower them to provide valuable insights, but we listened to their feedback.”
“This has built growing trust with our customers, who have been able to help us rethink how we provide essential services.
“As an essential service provider, the challenges we’re facing require significant investments now to secure our city’s water and wastewater services for the next generation and generations to come,” Mr Cheroux said.
He says Sydney Water’s Long-Term Capital and Operational Plan has identified critical infrastructure required to accommodate the population boom, a changing climate, upgrades to ageing infrastructure, and the rising cost of living.
Over the next 10 years, Sydney Water is set to invest more than 30 billion dollars to upgrade existing networks and deliver new infrastructure.
In addition to the Roy Morgan survey, Sydney Water’s conducts its own research into its brand health, via a regular on-going Brand Tracker.
“This research monitors key metrics over time. One of these metrics is trust. Sydney Water continuously performs very strongly on trust, outperforming all the other benchmark organisations to which it is compared and has done so since the inception of the Brand Tracker in 2020.”
“This recognition confirms Sydney Water is not only reliable within the utilities sector but is also trusted when compared to all brands across all sectors and industries in Australia.
“We are grateful for this award and look forward to continuing our build our customers trust into the future and beyond,” Mr Cheroux said.
