Imagine OpenReach was a non-profit: Part 2
This is a quick follow-up to the post from last Thursday in which I compared the behaviour of the non-profit water utility Welsh Water to the for-profit telecoms utility Openreach.
Due to the bad weather we had last week in Wales, Welsh Water had a shortage of engineers. They still arranged for a contractor to come the same day to look at the damaged manhole cover on our property. Due to the high workload, the contractor only arrived at nine o' clock in the evening, but was very friendly and performed his inspection quickly and efficiently. He left a card with a reference number and said that Welsh Water would be in touch.
Based on my previous experience with utility companies like Openreach, I didn't expect them to get back to me quickly. Low and behold, they called as promised this morning to arrange for someone to come out and replace the manhole cover.
Is it possible that non-profits are able to provide better service because they're not just thinking about their bottom line, and don't have to cut corners just to increase shareholder profit?