September 2016
Featured in this insight: Electricity, Gas, Regulation, Water
Ofgem survey finds poor customer service drives customers away: A recent survey by the energy regulator, Ofgem, has revealed that nearly half of the Big Six energy companies' customers were forced to look for an alternative utilities provider after receiving poor customer service when making a complaint.
The Ofgem findings further paint a negative picture of the utilities industry, following the two-year investigation which looked into utilities providers who overcharged their customers as a result of uncompetitive standard energy tariffs.
Despite the number of complaints to utilities providers decreasing by half in the last two years since 2014, the customers who do make complaints are less satisfied with the response the provider gives them. Some respondents cited customer service agents breaking follow-up appointments and issues not getting resolved.
Of the people who made a complaint to a medium sized utilities supplier, approximately 2 in 3 said that they intended to switch providers following their less than positive experience.
The suppliers who performed the best in Ofgem’s survey were SSE, E.ON and EDF; however, the findings did note that these suppliers did not show much improvement in the complaints handling in the two years from 2014.
Of the respondents in the survey, just 1 in 3 said that they were given a named contact at their utilities supplier. As well as this, of those who filed a complaint against their utilities provider where the case was closed by the supplier, 42 per cent said that they believed that their problem was not resolved.
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