Billing systems ‘on right track’

EDF Energy and Npower have insisted that their billing system upgrades are heading in the right direction, but neither company has ruled out seeking compensation from their suppliers.

Npower said its domestic billing system upgrade, believed to be supplied by IBM, was “going fine” in response to rumours that its decision to “de-scope” the project had caused problems.

A spokesperson said: “Those areas de-scoped have been reintroduced through other project titles.” The firm said the idea was “to get the basics right” first. The spokesperson said that 600,000 accounts had been added to the new system, with one million to be transferred every six weeks between now and August. The company did not respond to questions about possible compensation.

EDF Energy did not rule out seeking compensation from its integrator, believed to be Accenture. The energy supplier has been under fire after the number of complaints soared because customers’ old account numbers were not recognised by the new system, rendering its automated system redundant. The subsequent long call waiting times have seen complaint levels almost double. This comes after the company admitted in August that it had billed about 100,000 customers incorrectly after a problem with its automated system.

The company said it had now completed “all major migrations” and had transferred about 5.4 million accounts to the new system. It said the remaining 20,000 accounts would be migrated by the end of January.

According to segmental accounts submitted to Ofgem, EDF and Npower have by far the highest costs per customer of the big six energy firms. EDF said the new system would eventually ensure a lower cost to serve but that there were other variables such as scale and “choices made on the level of service provided” that influenced the cost to serve.

The company said its new system meant customers could manage their account online but admitted there had been “some teething problems … that have now been resolved”.

Last year, Centrica settled its long-running billing system dispute with Accenture over Project Jupiter, just as the case was due to go to court.

by Brendan Coyne

UPDATE: Npower confirmed on 18/01/2012 that it did not intend to seek compensation from its supplier. “There are no issues at the moment,” said a spokesperson.

Which? urges customers to complain and claim

The major energy suppliers received more than four million complaints in 2011, according to Which?

Many unresolved complaints do not make it to the ombudsman, and consumers may have missed out on £4 million in compensation in 2011. The company’s annual consumer satisfaction survey put SSE top of the big six, followed by British Gas, Eon-UK, Scottish Power, EDF Energy and Npower.

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 13 January 2012.
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