Beware the British Gas letter

Mercenary

Well, I've just got my letters entitled
"I'm sorry to hear you're leaving British Gas. Please contact us so we can settle your account details."
It then says ...."If you have not already spoken to one of our advisors please call us on 0845 *** **** as soon as possible to talk about closing your account."

Fair enough, I thought, and went ahead.
I asked to give my final readings for my gas and electricity meters as I'm switching supplier to Atlantic. My offer of my readings being totally ignored, I was then treated to a very long virtuoso performance of Trying To Keep The Customer :T . It was charmingly done but, crikey!, was it a hard sell!

I was asked why I'm switching and when I said it's the prices and the icing on the cake was the online accounts viewing fiasco, I was told how disappointing it would be to lose such a preferred customer (?) after years of loyalty and if I forgot about the switch I could be signed up immediately for the Fix and Fall deal as it would make my price worries disappear (like that's an incentive to stay?)and that, sadly, the offer might not be around if I changed my mind and came back to Brit Gas later :undecided .
The Utility Comparison sites were pooh-poohed, Atlantic's prices were slated even when I said I'd checked the new prices on both BG's and Atlantic's sites and it was still going to be cheaper to switch. Round and round we went.

I knew I wasn't going to be swayed, but it took a long time to finally get him to admit defeat :silenced: and, although I was laughing at the audacity of it all, I was sweating a bit with the unrelenting pressure. I can see how someone could get persuaded into staying with them just to get off the phone. It was bl**dy hard work _pale_ .

So, Dear BG Customer, if you receive this same letter when you switch....be prepared! They will try to batter you into submission with very persuasive silver-tongued techniques. God, he was good!

It turned out they didn't want my traitorous readings anyway as Atlantic would apparently advise them in due course (after I gave the readings to them ) and the switch would get underway as planned.

masonic

I did the same thing - I presumed this was just to arrange for the cheque to be sent. I did get asked why I was leaving, but my reply of "While I was with you, I experienced the most horrendous customer service of my life" must have put him off a bit. I can't imagine why. He just apologised.

seletar

I also spoke to BG before switching to equigas....in response to "Why are you
leaving us", my reply of "because I want to" left the person at BG speechless.
He obviously didn`t have a response to that answer on his script.He finally
replied with "Well thank you very much".

BritishGasWorker

Hi guys....just been reading this thread had alittle chuckle since I work for them

As with all suppliers we will try to keep your custom, no one wants to lose customers, so please remember try to be nice and not rude ;O)

Also in regards to going over to Atlantic..I did it myself a few years ago and Iwould not touch them with a barge pole any more.....I was given unit prices, however when i got there it was alot higher,,,,if you dont get it in writing you may not get what you have been quoted..and if done thru 3rd party it is almost impossible to proove...SO the moral of the story is get it in writing

Cheers

Andyx

BritishGasWorker

Ps...WE dont have sales scripts only sales aids which tell staff what the diffrence is, only time we use a script is when a sale is done and that legal req..

tomstickland

no one wants loose customers

Yes, a loose customer is a bad customer.

I work for them

Good of you to tell us that since with your cryptic user name I guessed you were an undertaker.

I'm a BG Click energy customer and BG customer support is, erm, "not very good". But you're the cheapest Economy 7 supplier at the moment in my region and I actually think the website is OK now that it almost works.

After 10 phone calls I managed to finally speak to someone who knew what they were talking about.

But that's about the industry average.

BritishGasWorker

Please dont aim sarcasm at me i get it all day from customers..i am helping in my own time..otherwise i can walk :OP

tomstickland

I'm not being sarcastic apart from your confusing name.
The rest is my honest opinion.
I don't hold anything against you personally (or metaphorically).

An enterprise like BG is a massive machine with a lot of inertia and even if someone within wants to make changes, it takes a loooong time for those changes to filter through the whole system. As I said, the online billing and cheap prices are fine for me, but my experience of the call centres has left me wanting.

BritishGasWorker

tomstickland wrote:

I'm not being sarcastic apart from your confusing name.
The rest is my honest opinion.
I don't hold anything against you personally (or metaphorically).

An enterprise like BG is a massive machine with a lot of inertia and even if someone within wants to make changes, it takes a loooong time for those changes to filter through the whole system. As I said, the online billing and cheap prices are fine for me, but my experience of the call centres has left me wanting.

Arrr oh ok...sorry got the wrong end of the stick..thought you were correcting my grammer..

The call centers are 100% better than they were 6 months ago, it takes time,, but i am sure it will get better....

tomstickland

It's all about business model. If the staff feel like cheap labour and only last a few weeks then they don't feel the need to care. If they have numerous nasty customers on the phone then they quickly adopt a "who cares" attitude. I can understand all of this.
Personally I think the best service would be if you call a number and then are allocated one person who will deal with all of your problems. I can see problems with this - they only work 8 hours per day and what if all their customers phoned up at the same time etc. However, a more investement based customer service model would pay off in my opinion. It's that feeling that everyone knows that as soon as they put the phone down then it's not their problem anymore.

BritishGasWorker

I shall throw some figures at ya...

when there is a prblem 8 out of 10 people moan groan and tell everyone else...if they get good service only 1 or 2 out of 10 say so and tell others..

Where I work I deal with complaints etc all the time, however I am fully trained and spent at first 13 weeks in a classroom learning the tip of the iceburg..

However when I was on the front line Eg taking general calls....7 out of every 10 customer that cam thru were either rude, sarcastic, unhelpful or shouted or swearing, even if they waited 3 mins to get thru, people in this courty treat call centre staff terribly, remember they are human and a thank you will and does cheer them up for the rest of the day.
Remember folks..if someone has been good and help its take 2 seconds to say thank you, if they are bad tell them and ask to speak to there boss.

Cheers

Andy