OFGEM published last year’s complaint’s figures and was pleased to note that total complaints went down from 5m in 2015 to 3.5m in 2016.
While this is certainly encouraging and proves that most suppliers are taking customer service seriously, there is still no room for complacency.
Looking at the graphs on
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/energy-supplier-comparison-data/compare-supplier-performance-complaints
in particular bigger supplier’s have come down from unacceptable high numbers of complaints in previous years, some smaller ones actually feared worse towards the end of last year.
However it’s not just the number of complaints received that matters, but how they were handled and how long it took to be resolved and how many had to be referred to the ombudsman. Big 6 suppliers resolved at the end 2016 between 50 – 74% by the end of next working day while by the medium sized supplier this varied between 24 and 89% and one of the small suppliers resolved as little as 16% but the same supplier only received 48 complaints per 10’000 customers.
Suppliers need to work harder to get things right the first time and in particular need to audit and test their IT systems much more thoroughly. Front line staff need to be better trained to handle complaints quickly.
Alpine Utilities prides itself to assist customers with their complaints all the way until they are resolved to customers full satisfaction.