Poor service from major suppliers continues

The ‘big six’ energy suppliers continue to perform poorly in terms of customer satisfaction – with millions of complaints made by customers – compared with some of their smaller competitors, according to both the regulator Ofgem and consumer organisation Which?

Ofgem believes that, despite some improvements last year, the number of complaints from customers remains too high and urges all suppliers to strive for further improvements. According to data on supplier complaints published by Ofgem for 2015:

• the six largest suppliers received just fewer than 5mn complaints in 2015, a 24% reduction compared to 2014;
• npower received the most complaints in 2015 per 100,000 customer accounts, though the company has more than halved the number of complaints received compared with 2014; 
• Utility Warehouse received most complaints out of the independent suppliers in 2015; and
• measures out of the larger suppliers.

Meanwhile, the latest annual Which? energy company satisfaction survey shows that the big six suppliers continue to provide a poor level of customer service, with smaller providers topping the table for a fifth year in a row. The research revealed that the vast majority of customers are still with the big six suppliers (87%) and, of the 8,900 people surveyed, just 10% had switched energy provider in the past year.

Three of the big six providers failed to meet the overall average customer score of 53% and npower has, for the sixth year running, scored the lowest customer satisfaction score with 41%. npower was closely followed by Scottish Power, The Co-operative Energy, Extra Energy and SSE.

For the fifth year running, smaller energy providers topped the customer satisfaction table, with OVO Energy first with a score of 82%, closely followed by Good Energy and Ecotricity.