British Gas Complaints Soar
April 22, 2007 at 9:47 am
Since British Gas launched a new billing system last year, complaints about the company’s service have more than doubled, according to the independent electricity and gas energy watchdog. Dissatisfied customers have flooded Energywatch with tens of thousands of complains about disputed bills, call centre delays and poor customer service standards.
Speaking about the massive rise in complaints, the energy watchdog’s director of campaigns Adam Scorer said of the supplier “Their service has gone from bad to worse. Their inability to deal with customers’ problems is inexcusable.” Complaints reached 21,427 between October 2006 and March of this year, compared with 8,012 in the same period just a year earlier. Energywatch was contacted by a record 14,000 frustrated British Gas customers in March alone.
According to British Gas’s Managing Director Phil Bentley, problems began to arise when the company transferred the details of 16 million customers onto a new computer database last year. However, thousands of complaints have been made against a new billing system recently implemented which means that bills are estimated by computer instead of being calculated according to a meter reading. Energywatch states that the new system is over-estimating the costs to customers, who are receiving bills for greater amounts of gas or electricity than they are using. To make matters worse, when attempting to complain to the provider customers have been faced with a massive shortage of call centre staff, meaning long delays in customer service. In response to these problems, thousands of frustrated complaints have been made to Energywatch.
Bentley put the drastic rise in complaints down to inevitable “teething problems” with the new system, and spoke on behalf of British Gas: “”Obviously we apologise for the inconvenience and the stress. I understand what it’s like to get a bill that’s incorrect. We apologise to those customers and we’re working very hard to improve services.” The provider has reportedly employed an extra 800 frontline staff to cope with customer complaints, with the wait for customer service now averaging at 70 seconds.
Nevertheless, many critics are sceptical of improvement. Energy product manager of the online comparison service uSwitch, Geoff Slaughter stated scathingly “British Gas keeps telling us that it is turning a corner, but this seems to be one of the longest corners in history.” Adam Scorer spoke of British Gas’s reputation, stating that “the inability to treat their customers who have a genuine problem with their bills with the most basic level of customer service is what’s causing British Gas’s reputation, quite frankly, to be dragged through the mud.”
In response to the growing criticism of British Gas, MD Phil Bentley apologised on BBC radio, stating: “I’m on record as saying we will see significant improvements in service by summer.”
