Some of the biggest energy suppliers in the UK, such as EDF Energy, npower and E.ON have dropped a star in the league table rating.
EDF Energy scored the worst, while the electricity and natural gas supplier SSE had the lowest number of complaints, the government-funded consumer watchdog says.
Complaints to EDF Energy, up almost 100% on the same quarter last year, are deemed to have a “catastrophic impact on its rating”, said Adam Scorer, head of external affairs at Consumer Focus.
A major driver for the surge in complaints was the rise in prices announced by the six leading energy suppliers between June and September. EDF’s prices rose by 15.4% for gas and 4.5% for electricity while E.ON’s prices rose by 18.1% for gas, 11.4% for electricity and 15.2% for customers receiving both gas and electricity from the supplier.
Consumers’ lack of trust has also played a role in the rising number of complaints.
“It is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that complaints on energy issues have risen at a time when energy bills are increasing. Energy companies have repeatedly said they want to rebuild consumer trust. Good customer service and complaints handling are key ingredients to building consumer trust but suppliers still have a long way to go,” Scorer said.
COMMENTS
UK residential gas and electricity prices are low compared to, for example, Germany (residential electricity UK 14 euro cents compared to around 25 euro cents for Germany – per Kwhr). This begs the question: is the whinning about the rises or the absolute price. Furthermore, prices rises are a wonderful signal for better energy efficiency.
Energy companies in the Uk offer a plethora (hundreds) of pricing options in the residential market – to the point that Ofgem the regulator is un-happy (but so far has done little). Furthermore, there is relatively little swapping between energy supplies (less than 20% of customers swap – most are passive) – raising the question – if customers do not change suppliers – then what role price signals and whence “energy liberalisation”??
The energy companies also whine: “Volker Beckers, chief executive of RWE npower, insisted recently that his company made just £1.50 profit on every £100 spent, while making a loss per average customer between 2004 and 2009”. The issue, Volker, is, was this a “real” loss or something your accountants cooked up all in the interests of a little bit of tax “efficiency” which in turn leads to the “are you a charitable institution?” question (otherwise – why keep making losses?).
The PWR perspective is that energy liberalisation is fine in theory & probably works well if applied to companies (I used to shop around for diesel suppliers when I ran the services at Sony’s TV factory) but appears to falter when applied to the residential energy “market” – it take two to tango & competition needs both active suppliers and active buyers, if the latter are passive – whence competition?. No doubt the bright boys and girls in Guenters cabinet have all the answers – go on send them to me – on a postcard
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