Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

happyplace_3

I would just like to say that I have been a customer now for 3 years and 4 months and would not consider moving my services. I have telephone, broadband, gas, electricity, 2 mobiles, cashback card and a freephone number with them. My bill is rarely over £70 in total. What people need to remember is that UW is a discount club. The more services that you take the more that you benefit. UW doesn't guarantee to be the cheapest 24/7 on energy but over a period of time, most people will save money. However, as a distributor, if I go to see a customer and I feel that they are on a good deal, I will tell them so and I have done this on several occasions. As a distributor, my job is merely to tell people about the services. People can then make up their own minds as to what they would like to do.

NigeWick

TwittersPVFC wrote: »

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISISM!!!

Thanks for that then.

MillicentBystander

We had a New Year's Eve Party and got everything for it from Asda & Sainsburys. Spent far too much, I suppose (luckily, we have a group of friends who take it in turns to host the party so no more for us for 5 years!) The financial 'blow' was softened somewhat by the fact that Mr Sainsbury and Mr Asda have now effectively paid for our phone line/broadband and calls for 15 days, just for the expenditure on the party!

TwittersPVFC

NigeWick wrote: »

Thanks for that then.

The best thing they could do is get rid of the misleading "Compare Prices" link. Then have a link to the website which tells people what the low, medium and high bands are and what people should do if they don't know them. Finally, if it's feasible, implement a Postcode search facility that will tell people what region they come under. Alsager in Cheshire for example has a Crewe Postcode but a Stoke area code and can get both Granada and Central telly. So for them, the map wouldn't tell them easily if they were Manweb or Norweb.

I know you say you need to look, but customers nowadays don't want to spend ages looking. Hence why comparison sites are so popular. Make it clearer and simpler and more people will want to sign up.

NigeWick

TwittersPVFC wrote: »

I know you say you need to look, but customers nowadays don't want to spend ages looking.

You get what you "pay" for. Less effort put in, less value out. It seems to me that most people these days are trying to get something for nothing. Not going to happen.

TwittersPVFC

NigeWick wrote: »

You get what you "pay" for. Less effort put in, less value out. It seems to me that most people these days are trying to get something for nothing. Not going to happen.

That's society nowadays. It's up to the business to cater to that. You will never get customers to change, so businesses need to. Especially in a recession.

johnjames1

:rotfl:
Telecom Plus PLC (trading as The Utility Warehouse) currently supply over 200,000 electricity households and around 180,000 gas households, under licences granted to Electricity Plus Limited and Gas Plus Limited respectively. Only 380,000 customers? You said you had 3k 4 years ago!
We have built our business as the only Company to have successfully challenged the entrenched market position of the “Big 6” by focussing on consistently delivering the best customer service and overall value for money. This is evidenced by the recent independent market research carried out by Which? magazine, where we were rated as “Best Energy Supplier” by a significant margin compared with our competitors, and by the low churn rates we enjoy. Which emails show T+ getting their ID’ to vote.
We do not claim to be the cheapest energy provider in isolation, but deliver significant savings to our customers through our unique “multi-utility” proposition, where customers receive a wide range of valuable benefits by using us to supplier all their utilities. We are the only Company to offer a fully integrated solution encompassing gas, electricity, fixed telephony, mobile telephony and broadband, with customers receiving just a single monthly bill for all the services being supplied to them. Which gives you a strangle hold on the customer when they are in dispute with say like your overestimating by 700.00 a month!
We have two real concerns with your proposed retail market remedies in relation to providing detailed price comparisons and quotations at the point of sale – which are likely in our view to have a number of unintended consequences. These would effectively result in more misleading information being provided to consumers than is currently the case:
1. Firstly, from our perspective there is an undue focus in your proposals on the cost of energy in isolation. For example, some suppliers offer a dual fuel discount which reduces the annual cost of the energy supplied, typically by around £30pa. In contrast, we offer multi-utility customers “Free Global Calls” which are typically worth around £100 as well as a range of other valuable benefits. Ever heard of SYPE or internet services for FREE!
By including the dual fuel discount from our competitors, but excluding the value of the additional benefits we provide, the headline cost of our energy superficially appears to be higher. This however is misleading, as once the value of all the other benefits we offer is included, our customers are in fact substantially better off. Why would customers want your expensive mobiles and call tariff’s?
2. Secondly, at the point of sale it is only possible to compare the future cost of the energy from the old and new supplier, based on expected annual consumption, by using the published tariffs for each supplier which are in force at that time. This theoretically enables a “quote” to be prepared showing both how much the new supplier “will charge”, and “the difference” the switch will make. In 2006 and other times you changed your tariffs by stealth sent out news after the fact.
The problem is that it is 100% certain this will not in fact be the amount the new supplier will charge (as their tariffs will change over the course of the year, and the actual consumption will differ from the EAC or AQ). And because the old and new suppliers are likely to change their tariffs on different dates going forward, and by different amounts, the customer will end up making either lower or greater savings than the amount your guidelines are suggesting the new supplier should have explicitly told him to expect – in writing!! In reality, the customer will in many cases actually still find himself worse off having switched, because the new supplier has increased their prices by more than the old supplier.
In conclusion, we believe you should be extremely cautious about adopting an approach that requires suppliers to give customers something which they will not unreasonably rely upon as being a real quote in relation to how much their energy will cost from their potential new supplier, and how much they will save compared with their current supplier, when the nature of the market is that both of these figures will be inaccurate, untrue and therefore misleading – in particular, it will do nothing to stop the sharp practice by certain suppliers of offering “loss leading” tariffs to attract customers to switch in the short-term, only to increase them subsequently to a less competitive level.
I am unclear what the industry is supposed to say to a customer, who in accordance with the proposed new guidelines has received a written quote telling him that his new supplier will charge him £x for his energy over the coming year, and that he will be £y better off, when at the end of the year he has been charged £z and found he has in fact paid considerably more than he would have done had he remained with his original supplier.
Finally, I would make the observation that the biggest culprits when it comes to mis-selling, for the reasons set out above, are in fact the various comparison web-sites. In many cases this is a deliberate tactic they adopt, as demonstrated by their policy of advertising long term savings based on exploiting short-term timing differences between suppliers announcing their price changes. The reality is that these are commercial businesses, whose objective is to drive switching in order to generate commissions rather than to actually generate savings for their users, and in many cases they have structured their sites in such a way as to ensure that the suppliers which generate the highest commissions are presented in the most favourable way. Future action to promote confidence in these sites as being “impartial” is in our view misconceived. That’s from the horses mouth sorry for the horse!
Yours sincerely
CHARLES WIGODER
Chief Executive

penrhyn

Not a happy bunny.

Cardew

penrhyn wrote: »

Not a happy bunny.

Who Charles Wigoder or John James1?

This of course is Charles letter to ofgem objecting to proposed legislation that makes it mandatory that prospective customers must be given a written quote of just how much(extra!!) UW customers would be charged for their gas and electricity.

I wonder why he doesnt like customers to see something in writing.

johnjames1

There bills used to state how much you have saved since "joining" now they dont do it because they say it is too complicated so how do they know you are saving money never seen an ID scrub his bill and place it for all to see?