Why don't existing companies offer cheaper?

chrisw

I've been with Scottish Power for several years and have finally got round to switching - Eon were significantly cheaper.

Now the switch is going through I've had emails, phone calls and even a guy come round from Scottish Power offering me deals and incentives to cancel the switch and move back to them.

What annoys me is that why didn't they offer me those deals in the first place? I would happily have stayed with them and saved myself some work.

I refuse to move back now on principle.

Airmike23

they are for profit businesses just as your bank if you have a savings acc will not inform you of a better acc with a better rate of interest, however, if you contact your power co, or use their website to do your billing, new tariffs are always advertised on them and you can swap tariff online with your provider, up to 8 times a year. Also tariff ranges for all power companies are so fluid some tariffs are availble for about 6 to 8 weeks only so if you are mailed about it and do not respond fairly promptly, you may call to go on it, but not be avail any longer, which is then a bad customer experience, so easier to be reactive, or the customer can be proactive

Cardew

Your point is well made - it is a sort of 'loyalty bonus' in reverse.

I get furious at banks offering new higher interest rate saving accounts for 'new money' only.

backfoot

100% agree with you. The difference to banks of course is that energy is an absolute requirement. For many, that additional expense over and above that which is the most competitive can drive the poorest more and more into fuel poverty.They are also ill placed to be able to keep up to date.

I had our wonderful 'friends' at Npower ring me a few months after a switch away from them. 'We now have a great offer,our tariff is the cheapest blah,blah. Please come back to us.'

Why didn't you do something while I was a customer? Why do you constantly introduce new products? Why is my product already out of date and so much more expensive? Why didn't you automatically switch me to the cheaper alternative? Why is your customer service rubbish? Why do your sales people lie?

'We have 1.6 million customers,we couldn't possibly keep in touch with them all'.

Yeah right ! That's why I left then and I'm certainly not coming back now I've heard how you take money from customer's under false pretences.

'I don't know what you mean? '

Yeah right !!

Premier_2

chrisw wrote: »

I've been with Scottish Power for several years and have finally got round to switching - Eon were significantly cheaper...

If a comparison site showed that Eon were the cheapest solution for you at the time, then they would have been the cheapest.

Assuming no significant changes in offerings (i.e. Eon withdrawing the tariff you are currently on to new customers, Eon increasing the price or SP introducing a new lower priced tariff), then that situation has not changed.

Any suggestions to the contrary are just marketing waffle and spin.

Yellowcard

In the defence of energy companies you cant just start giving out free credits and gadgets to every customer, it wouldn't be logical, also as far as cheaper tariffs go if theyre below standard theyre 9 times out of 10 going to be online only, so naturally the advertisment for them is going to be online only, surley by now all customers are aware its cheaper to do your bills online, it has been a few years now, if customers took the time to ring their supplier in the first place and actually request information on all their tariffs i don't doubt for a second the agent would happily explain the range they have on offer including online and how they can make savings.

chrisw

Premier wrote: »

Any suggestions to the contrary are just marketing waffle and spin.

Which is what particularly annoyed me enough to rant on here. The guy who came round agreed they couldn't beat the Eon prices and trundled off. Fair enough. However, the parting shot from the SP guy on the phone yesterday was 'Well we could have saved you 12% off what you'll be paying to Eon and if you don't want to save money that's up to you. Goodbye.'

Utter rubbish.

Rant over. Phew.

davidgmmafan

I can see where you are coming from, I can also see the other side. I'll be devils advocate first. Writing to everyone to advise them you have a new cheaper online tariff would cost money, this would have to be financed through a more expensive tariff net result no more cheap online tariff.

On the other hand many customers feel this way, and some companies do things to retain customers. Sadly I've not come across this in the gas and electricity sphere but O2 have a pretty good rewards for existing customers on pay and go. So long as the tariff works for me I've not been tempted to even look around and this is unusaual for me. I'm talking in general terms here because I'm not sure I'm supposed to promote it directly lol

I think on balance the harsh truth is, sadly, its just the way of the world and the best weapon we have is to NOT be loyal and play them off against one another.

just-saving

I am with E.on and you will find that when you do your online billing, your account shows a link on your account to 'Switch or View Your Product/Tariff.'
When you click this it will show you the tariff you are on and the other tariffs available to you, so, if there is a saving to be made you can switch.
I have just switched from EnergyOnline to Saveonline4 today after clicking on this, so , in a way E.on are quite fair as they do show you the savings to be had if there are any so its always worth keeping an eye on.

Pincher

If they really want to hold onto customers, they should introduce loyalty bonus discounts, like car insurance no claims bonuses.

E.g. if you are a ten year E.On customer, you get an extra 5% off. Obviously you lose it if you switch to another supplier, so there's a resistance to switch.

Another way is attractive long term fix rate contracts,
with penalty clauses, like fixed rate mortgages. So you sign up for a five year fixed rate, with reducing penalty payments.

Ignite

Well, we moved to a new place and the existing supplier was npower. On calling up they said that the only tariff we could go on was their standard tariff "as we weren't a new customer". A complete rip off rate it was too. Well, I took a look online and found that nearly everybody else was cheaper by a long way so I started out filling in the online form. When it came to the supply reference number I didn't have one yet so I called up npower to get this. As the guy read it out to me I was filling it in on Scottish Powers website. After he gave it to me he asked why I wanted it and I told him that while we had been on the phone I had filled out and submitted my move to Scottish Power. This shocked him a little and he asked why. On being told that 2 previous CS reps had told me that I couldn't go onto their cheaper online deal he said that I had been told the wrong information and there was no reason why I couldn't make the move to the online deal. Well, as I then told him, it was too late. What a complete bunch of muppets! It shows you the arrogance of some companies.