Thames Water has extended a business process outsourcing (BPO) contract with Xansa in a 12-month deal, which will include outsourcing to India.

Xansa, which handles around 700,000 customer interactions a year for the utility, will continue to manage the back-office processes of metered billing exceptions, customer correspondence and general actions, allowing Thames Water to focus on customer service, cost, quality issues and compliance.

In a bid to increase efficiency, part of the service will be outsourced to India.

Mike Tempest, customer services director at Thames Water, says Thames has worked with Xansa for 18 years.

‘We have a highly successful, integrated delivery approach to service provision. It also allows us to continue to free up resources for deployment elsewhere within our organisation. The flexibility of the solution enables us to respond effectively to the seasonal variations in the demand for customer services,’ said Tempest.

The renewal of the BPO deal will take the contract duration to the six-year mark.