Citizens Advice has published its latest complaint figures for energy firms, with Extra Energy receiving the most and SSE with the lowest number of customer complaints
SSE has come out on top as the energy company with the lowest number of complaints according to the latest figures from Citizens Advice, with Extra Energy receiving the most.
The gap between the best and the worst supplier is widening – in fact, it’s the largest gap on record.
New figures covering April to June 2016 reveal that Extra Energy attracted a mammoth 1,791 complaints per 100,000 customers, compared to 1,682 last quarter. Remarkably, that’s 80 times more than SSE.
What’s gone wrong?
Common customer problems with Extra Energy include late or inaccurate bills and difficulty getting through to its customer service team when customers had an issue to resolve.
Flow Energy, which was in second place last quarter for least complaints, has fallen to tenth place after a four-fold rise in complaints.
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “The latest league table shows some suppliers are getting much better at sorting out their customers’ problems, but it’s disappointing to see others getting worse at dealing with complaints.
“Patchy and unpredictable customer service affects people in many ways – from the financial stress of being hit with a late bill, to the time wasted trying to get hold of a supplier on the phone.
“All suppliers must step up their efforts to make sure they are delivering a consistently high standard for their customers.”
Below is the full list of complaints per firm, starting with the best performers.
Ofgem satisfaction survey
Earlier this year, energy regulator Ofgem found npower had received more complaints across the whole of 2015 than any other supplier.
The energy giant received 13,966 complaints per 100,000 customers.
However, the firm, which has had problems with implementing a new billing and customer service system, has more than halved the number of complaints it received in 2014.
Utility Warehouse received the most complaints of the large independent suppliers last year, with 7,636 complaints per 100,000 customer accounts.
The six largest suppliers received just under five million complaints in total in 2015, which is down 24% compared to 2014. Despite this Ofgem says the number of complaints remain far too high and has called on firms to take action.
Ofgem also looked at customer satisfaction across the ‘Big Six’ suppliers.
It found that npower and Scottish Power scored consistently lower on nearly all of its customer satisfaction measures compared to rivals.
Just 28% would recommend npower as an electricity supplier and just 29% would for gas.
While only 47% thought gas bills and 50% thought electricity bills were easy to understand and less than half of customers were satisfied with the supplier’s service.
Meanwhile just 25% of electricity and 26% of gas customers agree Scottish Power values them.
In addition, only 48% of electricity and 54% of gas customers at Scottish Power were satisfied with the ease of contacting the supplier.
Ofgem has already ordered npower to pay £26 million for customer service failings and has given the firm strict improvement targets and the regulator says it is still investigating Scottish Power.
News source: home.bt.com