Customer service woe for British GasMore complaints than all its rivals put together
31 October 2006
British Gas has been slated for its poor customer service after it attracted more complaints than all the other domestic energy suppliers put together.
Industry watchdog Energywatch says it received more than 15,400 complaints about British Gas in the six months to September this year.
By contrast, it received fewer customer complaints about the five other major domestic energy suppliers over the same period.
Among the most common complaints against British Gas was inaccurate billing - sometimes resulting in threats of disconnection or even debt collectors – and a lack of response to customer enquiries.
Which? highlighted shoddy customer service by British Gas in September after a reader suffered a catalogue of incompetence when trying to move to its online tariff, called Click Energy.
Inaccurate billing
Energywatch Chief Executive Allan Asher said: ‘Everyone loses from poor customer service - and it makes absolutely no business sense at all. Until they put customers at the heart of their business this is going to go on. And it's a form of arrogance not to answer phones quickly.’
The watchdog has contacted the energy regulator Ofgem with its concerns about British Gas.
Energywatch received 15,433 complaints from British Gas domestic customers between April and September 2006 - more than double the figure for the same period last year. By contrast, the volume of complaints about EDF Energy, Npower, Powergen, Scottish and Southern Energy and Scottish Power all decreased.
Customer service
British Gas says it tries to answer customers' calls within 60 seconds.
But when researchers from BBC’s Watchdog rang four of the most common enquiry lines, it took an average of nine minutes for the calls to be answered - and on one occasion it was 47 minutes before anyone replied.
A British Gas spokesman said the company was introducing a new billing system and training 10,000 frontline staff as part of a £400 million investment in customer services.
He said: ‘The service issues highlighted are a temporary situation and we have already seen improvements. Last week our general enquiries line received over 300,000 calls with an average waiting time of 45 seconds. We are confident the investments in service being made will restore our position as one of the UK's top rated energy suppliers.’
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