Big six complaints drop by a quarter in 2015: Ofgem

The big six energy suppliers received around five million complaints in 2015, 24 per cent fewer than in 2014, according to complaints data from Ofgem.

British Gas was the best performing of the big six suppliers with 9,414 complaints per 100,000 customers, closely followed by Scottish Power with 10,498. SSE, EDF and Eon received 12,900, 11,842 and 11,551 complaints respectively.

Npower was bottom of the table, receiving nearly 14,000 complaints. However, this was half the number of complaints received by the supplier in 2014, following billing and complaint handling failures which resulted in a £26 million fine from Ofgem.

Of the independent suppliers, Utility Warehouse received the most complaints in 2015 with 7,336, compared with the best scoring independent Ecotricity (1,162 complaints).

Ofgem said that, despite the drop, the number of complaints remains “too high” and all suppliers must “continue to strive for further improvements”.

The data also looked at a number of customer satisfaction measures, including ease of contacting supplier and likelihood of a consumer recommending their supplier.

Scottish Power, which is currently under investigation from Ofgem into the treatment of its customers, scored consistently low in these categories, with an overall score of 47 per cent for customer service.

The supplier scored 48 per cent for ease of contacting, compared with British Gas and SSE which both scored 78 per cent. And only 25 per cent of Scottish Power customers said they felt valued, compared with 35 per cent of customers from highest scoring supplier in this category, SSE.

Which? executive director Richard Lloyd, said: “Many of the large energy firms, which dominate the market, still need to up their game as millions of customers are being let down with shoddy service and poor complaints handling.

“It’s clear companies need to take immediate action.”