Member Article

Which energy supplier tops complaints league?

New data from Citizens Advice shows the gap between the best and worst energy suppliers for handling customer complaints has increased.

Co-operative Energy is ranked lowest and has the highest customer complaint ratio ever recorded by the consumer champion. It received 1,584 complaints per 100,000 customers - 40 times higher than the best performer, SSE. Earlier this year the Co-operative introduced a new billing and customer service system which has created problems.

The results for July to September 2015 show SSE, EDF Energy and Green Star Energy all reduced complaints with the latter managing to halve its complaint ratio.

The findings are from the Citizens Advice quarterly energy supplier league table which includes customer complaints data from the 19 largest energy suppliers operating in Great Britain. It finds:

There is little difference between the top two suppliers with SSE and EDF Energy posting 39 and 43 complaints per 100,000 customers respectively; Co-operative Energy and Extra Energy performed considerably worse than last quarter and are ranked lowest with 1,584 and 1,164 complaints per 100,000 customers respectively; Scottish Power, bottom last quarter, showed signs of improvement with complaints dropping slightly to 740 per 100,000 customers - placing it 17th in the table.

Neeraj Sharma, chief executive of Citizens Advice Darlington, said: “It’s unacceptable that energy customers are being let down on basic services. Good customer service is essential to any effective industry - the fact energy consumers face such a lottery shows this market has a long way to go.”

Citizens Advice has developed a price comparison tool to make it easier for customers unhappy with their current provider to shop around for better deals.

This is the second time that Citizens Advice has compared all of the major energy suppliers, previously it was just the Big Six.

Anyone who needs advice on issues with their energy supplier can call the Citizens Advice consumer service on 03454 04 05 06 or contact Citizens Advice Darlington on 01325 256999.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Citizens Advice Darlington .