How we’re doing with your energy complaints

We take every complaint seriously because we want to give you excellent service. So we’re working hard to understand where we are going wrong so we can fix the issues that are driving complaints.

Our latest report is for the second quarter of 2018 (1st April to 30th June 2018).

The complaints we’ve included are from our residential energy customers, as well as the customers we have through our partnership brand, Sainsbury’s Energy.^[1]

Billing

We’re always looking at the reasons why you may be unhappy about billing so that we can figure out how to fix the issues. The volume of meter reading and billing complaints continues to fall due to improvements to our processes. We now have the highest number of customers with accurate reading on their account in the last 12 months than ever before.

Each year British Gas take part in a voluntary Billing Audit managed by Energy UK as a means to demonstrate compliance with Billing Code in 5 key process areas. This year was particularly challenging as the scoring mechanism and rating bandings have become more stringent. Despite this we achieved a Silver Award. This is a fantastic achievement and is a 27% improvement on our 2016 result.

What we’ve done:

• invested in texting to make it easier for you to send us your readings. This has enabled us to send an accurate bill to more customers each month
• enabled the ability to offer you electricity special meter reading appointments within 4 days – a reduction of 17 days from 2015

What we’re doing:

• making a change which will allow us to text more of you, our customers, and ask for meter readings which will mean more accurate bills based on what you send us
• reviewing our end to end process whereby a smart meter doesn’t work to ensure we can still bill you to an accurate meter reading
• continuing to review our Direct Debit process from a customer perspective to improve the experience
  

Payments

Lots of things affect how many complaints we get about payments such as seasonality, tariff changes, and how we explain payment plans. So we’re doing everything we can to make things simpler for you.

What we’ve done:

• completed 3.7m reassessments of Direct Debits this quarter to ensure that your payments will meet your anticipated consumption
• improved system reliability to assist in the prevention of problems when you try to set up a Direct Debit with us
• improved our systems to make it easier for you to make card payments to us

What we’re doing:

• improving our self-serve experience to give you more ways to interact with us and manage your account
• reviewing our Direct Debit reassessments to allow more stability in your instalment amount making it easier for you to manage your finances
• looking at ways that we can make our Direct Debit set-up process more straightforward for you

Metering

We always do our best to fix problems you have with your meters as we know that this can cause a lot of inconvenience.

What we’ve done:

• installed more than 370,000 smart meters across Britain in the quarter
• made our smart metering appointments more flexible to meet your needs including trials at weekends
• delivered new planning technology to the Smart Energy Experts allowing for better more efficient planning and reducing broken appointments
• introduced a Right First Time measure to focus the whole operation (contact centres & field teams) on a successful meter booking to meter installation customer experience, for you
• developed a new method of working to ensure a smoother customer experience for you
  

What we’re doing:

• commenced a programme to improve delivery of smart meters to you. This should make installation of smart meters quicker and help reduce complaints further
• continuing to upgrade existing smart meters with the technology which will ensure that they will work to enable you to move to other suppliers and keep the benefits of your current smart meter
• reviewing our operating model to ensure it reflects your demands
• building a new coaching structure to deliver coaching focused around the customer experience i.e. Energy Efficiency advice
• redesigning our reward structure to focus on customer outcomes rather than just volume
• increasing engineer availability to reduce lead times from booking to appointment
• improving our ways of working by using improved data analytics and operational modelling
• made changes which make it easier for our Smart Energy Experts to provide energy efficiency advice to you
• reviewing our processes to reduce repeat calls to customers that have been contacted several times previously
  

Customer Service

We strive to get things right for you first time.

What we’ve done:

• delivered additional training to our agents to ensure we’re quick to identify your complaints, and resolve things promptly and effectively
• delivered call messaging technology to more of our agents so they’re able to use this as an additional channel to effectively interact with you
  

What we’re doing:

• continuing to develop a programme to enhance the way we handle your enquiries and complaints, so we can resolve things as quickly as possible
• looking at ways to use technology to ensure you can speak to the right person, straight away, so your enquiry can be dealt with efficiently

Communication

It’s important that we communicate well with you to ensure we get things right.

What we’ve done:

• tested new technology and innovative ways to get in touch with you in order to resolve your complaints. We’ve seen some positive results so we’ve extended these trials, and are continuing to test and monitor the results

What we’re doing:

• always looking at further ways we can improve the correspondence and bills we issue as we want to make sure they’re clear and easy to understand
• improving the experience that you have when you visit our website
• reviewing how we receive and respond to emails from you so we can improve this process