Greg Jackson slams ‘terrible’ Citizens Advice star ratings

Octopus chief executive Greg Jackson has slammed Citizens Advice’s star ratings as “a terrible metric” and “totally misleading”.

It comes after the consumer group gave Octopus a rating of 2.52 stars out of 5, which left them in lowly 10th place in the latest rankings of energy retailers.

Jackson is the latest industry figure to criticise the star rating system, with both Utiltia and So Energy previously calling for the methodology to be changed.

Energy companies are now required to publish their star ratings on their website, under reforms pushed through by Ofgem in October last year.

Jackson expressed his frustration with the star ratings in a series of tweets.

In particular, the Octopus boss believes that call answer times should not be given such a high weighting when measuring customer satisfaction.

He described the star ratings as a “terrible metric compared to customer satisfaction” adding that it uses a “totally misleading methodology”.

“CA (Citizens Advice) use self-reported answer times, and don’t look at outcomes, it essentially rewards a company for answering quickly regardless of quality and is very heavily gamed. That’s why every other survey gives totally different results,” Jackson tweeted.

“All our research says customers want better answers, even if they have to wait a little (noting our average phone answer is currently about 2 mins, and usually been 2-4, even at height of crisis).”

Jackson also pointed out that Octopus has been ranked in first place in a number of similar customer satisfaction surveys – including those run by Ofgem, Which, Trustpilot and the Institute of Customer Service.

EDF, which was one of the highest scoring suppliers this time last year, has fallen to the bottom of the rankings after its average call waiting times jumped from just under a minute to over five minutes.

While accepting that “call answer times haven’t been up to the high standards we set ourselves”, EDF agrees with Jackson that Citizens Advice places too much emphasis on call answer times.

An EDF spokesperson added: “We get as many emails, texts and WhatsApps as we do calls, but Citizens Advice places heavier weighting on call-wait times to calculate the overall score, which we’re calling on them to change.”

The ratings are based on data from a number of sources including complaints made to the Citizens Advice Consumer Service, the Extra Help Unit and the Energy Ombudsman. Data from suppliers is gathered on customer service, billing and switching.

There are a number of categories for which suppliers are given a score out of 5 before they are given an overall star rating out of 5. Not all categories are equal. Some, like complaints, count more towards the final score than others.

Gillian Cooper, director of energy at Citizens Advice, added: “Our star rating is based on a variety of metrics. This includes established data like call wait times and complaints made by consumers to organisations like Citizens Advice and the Energy Ombudsman.

“We use some data reported to us by suppliers themselves. This is gathered using our statutory information request powers – identical to those used by Ofgem in relation to its own complaints data. Suppliers need to provide this accurately or they risk legal enforcement action by the regulator.

“All suppliers have our methodology, receive the rating results in advance and have the opportunity to raise concerns beforehand.”

Ratings are updated quarterly, with Citizens Advice raising concerns about declining scores across the sector.

The latest star rating league tables, published earlier this week, show that average ratings have fallen by 10.5% compared to the same period in 2021, and have flatlined since the end of 2023.

Citizen’s Advice claims that a prolonged period of poor customer service scores has strengthened the case for Ofgem to be given more powers to clamp down on energy retailers.

Specifically, the group is calling for a consumer duty to be introduced into Ofgem’s framework of regulatory requirements.