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Npower defends customer service record

Npower has defended its customer service record saying that overall complaints have dropped since 2015 despite the number of complaints about it escalated to Citizens Advice increasing.

The latest figures published by Citizens Advice last week showed Npower in the bottom three of the 20 largest suppliers in the UK for customer complaints, which increased from 565.4 per 100,000 customers at the end of last year to 652.8 in the first quarter of 2016.

Npower told Utility Week that despite these figures, overall complaints have dropped by 68 per cent between March 2015 (83,859) and March 2016 (26,170).

Npower director of domestic customer services Chris Thewlis said: “We’re disappointed to see the increase in customers who have taken their complaint to Citizens Advice during the first three months of this year.

“Over the last 12 months, we have seen a significant reduction in the overall number of complaints we receive; we’re continuing to work very hard to reduce the numbers of customers who need to escalate their issues.”

The figures follow a difficult year for the big six supplier after facing a record fine of £26 million from Ofgem for billing and complaint handling failures which could result in a ban on proactive domestic sales and advertising unless it meets targets for improvements agreed with the regulator.