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Independent supplier Extra Energy has performed worst amongst the UK’s 20 largest suppliers for dealing with customer complaints, according to Citizens Advice.
Citizens Advice published its latest figures for January to March 2016 which showed that Extra Energy received 1,682 complaints per 100,000 customers – the highest complaints ratio ever recorded in the league table’s five-year history.
The supplier’s managing director of operations Ben Jones said: “It is true to say that the first quarter of the year was a challenging period and some customers were affected. We apologise unreservedly to every single customer who has experienced problems.
“We failed to anticipate just how attractive our low prices would be to householders and unfortunately we didn’t put customer service resource in place quickly enough. Thankfully these problems are largely a thing of the past.”
Extra Energy said it had taken measures to improve including moving to larger office premises and hiring more than 150 full-time customer service staff in the past six months.
SSE remained top of the table, while the majority of the big six suppliers, with the exception of Scottish Power, scored worse than the previous quarter.
SSE group managing director Will Morris said: “Our customer service teams have worked incredibly hard to improve our score once again. They have put the needs of customers first and shown that when it comes to taking care of customers, bigger is better.”
The only big six supplier in the bottom four was Npower, whose complaints figures have significantly worsened since the end of last year. The supplier also faced difficulties last year when it was fined a record £26 million by Ofgem for failing to treat customers fairly.
Parent company RWE is in the process of restructuring the company in an effort to cut costs, and has warned that Npower could be sold.
Flow Energy became the first small supplier to reach second place since smaller suppliers were added to the league table in 2015, receiving 32.6 complaints per 100,000 customers in Q1.
Meanwhile Co-operative Energy greatly improved reducing complaints from 1148.8 per 100,000 customers at the end of 2015 to 819.3 in Q1 2016. The supplier had experienced billing issues which caused a record numbers of complaints last year.
Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy said: “Energy consumers continue to face a gamble when it comes to good customer service. The latest league table results show both small and large suppliers delivering a good service, proving that a company’s size is no excuse for poor performance.”
The figures in the table are based on complaints escalated by customers to Citizens Advice, the Extra Help Unit and the Ombudsman and weighted according to severity.
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