British Gas:now phoning customers for meter readings

Joyful

I work with vulnerable customers so the information I have given is correct. Many times a customer will refuse to give their date of birth. Others say they are fine and don't want to go on the vulnerable register or don't want to advise us of any health issues. I know all the things we can do to help customers and what I advised above was one of them.

I agree if a customer is called they should advise that they are unable to reach the meter and the reason why. At this point the agent should take the appropriate action and pass them through to be registered. I agree that this may not always get done but more training is being given to remind staff and it is happening much more often now.

I have to add that there are more people that are not vulnerable and are quite happy to read their meters. I personally have a back problem and before my smart meter was installed I would wait for a friend to call and check my reading as it is down on the floor but I knew if there was ever a problem I could call and get the meter reader out.

With the introduction of the Warm Home Discount more customers are calling us and we are able to have the talk with them about any vulnerabilities that they have and address them with what help we can offer. Again we can only give help when we are advised.

I often tell people that when smart meters come in it will do away with many of these problems but of course will not help the meter readers.

t0rt0ise

When I was with OVO about three years ago someone phoned me for a meter read. I said the meters were outside and she said "oh I'll wait while you go now". I told her nicely to b!!!!! off as it was raining. Does everyone's brain fall out when they get older?

[Deleted User]

nice one tOrtOise well done,no theres plenty like you, thank god,and yes Joyful we know what they "should " do but when the call centre staff (prob outside agencys) are swayed by 80p bonus for the 2 reads they will be cutting corners and getting pushy.I know what they are saying to the customers,I ve spoke to hundreds of them.The main lie they quote is that" the meter readers not coming round we ve got staff shortages" others have even said they ve never heard of my companys name (,who v been collecting the readings for years), which casts doubt on my credentials.My boss says they are doing it all over the place now,I have only found it happening myself in "posh" towns with higher than average number of retired folk.Brit Gas will be getting the readings at a good discount on what they pay my company and thats what counts in the end.Money before safety.
Dont be so sure that smart meters are going to take over,theres a growing public opinion against them,the government may yet pull the plug on them ,i ve heard the BBC have got a programme in the pipeline which will show the public all the sinister sides to smart meters, but thats another debate

Terrylw1

sacsquacco wrote: »

thats the point of my post, Brit Gas are now doing their best to stop any meter guy going around at all,to increase profits.They ve tried flooding every one possible with emails,text messages in the last 2 years and the last resort now to target people not registered online or they dont have a mobile niumber is a direct phone call timed before the regular visit of the gasman deliberately, usually by about a week.The sort of customers without the internet or mobiles are the elderly.These are not special read visits, they are the standard quarterly bill reads.I can see the next step B.G. will do (like all the other suppliers now do) is to go to 6 monthly read visits just to upset the old dears more.NPower went 6 monthly last year and never even bothered to tell their customers who were surprised to get estimates all of a sudden.I suppose you can say thats progress and we want to save a polar bear,by stopping your gasman driving around heating up the planet.but its cleary a profit maker at the expense of the customers as usual.My next step now is a visit to the BBC watchdog website!

Yes, they did and just as it was about to go live it got pushed back when someone asked the customers. The results of whatever the did was enough to halt the whole thing. Sadly, they pushed it in at a later date despite their customers disagreeing.

That's good service, ignore your customer feedback. Given the shift to Lean practice I found this very strange since Lean/six sigma etc tells you to always priorities the customer requirements and ditch anything that doesn't add value since you're trying go sell something! I guess it just means its a sellers market and the opinion that counts is only the board, customers can buy or not bother kind of attitude.

Terrylw1

spiro wrote: »

There is one in elec, it's called 'Ladder Required'.

Absolutely. Sadly, in the aborts not a single one had this set for a ladder. So either it must be much higher, the data item is badly used or the position had become lost over time, perhaps due to CoA.

An area that needs more investigation really to determine each MOPs interpretation of when they set it to ladder required.

For the OP though, a data item that stated something more appropriate to the customer might help in these cases...as well as tightening up on use of the data item itself.

Terrylw1

sacsquacco wrote: »

nice one tOrtOise well done,no theres plenty like you, thank god,and yes Joyful we know what they "should " do but when the call centre staff (prob outside agencys) are swayed by 80p bonus for the 2 reads they will be cutting corners and getting pushy.I know what they are saying to the customers,I ve spoke to hundreds of them.The main lie they quote is that" the meter readers not coming round we ve got staff shortages" others have even said they ve never heard of my companys name (,who v been collecting the readings for years), which casts doubt on my credentials.My boss says they are doing it all over the place now,I have only found it happening myself in "posh" towns with higher than average number of retired folk.Brit Gas will be getting the readings at a good discount on what they pay my company and thats what counts in the end.Money before safety.
Dont be so sure that smart meters are going to take over,theres a growing public opinion against them,the government may yet pull the plug on them ,i ve heard the BBC have got a programme in the pipeline which will show the public all the sinister sides to smart meters, but thats another debate

Speaking from experience of smart but not from a Bgas angle (other than the mess caused when the customers switch to companies still trialling to find they are stuck with Bgas if the want smart functions), I've seen what a pain it can be from all the usual data cobble ups between industry parties to customers never getting billed. I do worry about a project of that size when it comes to data quality...its bad enough on a day-to-day basis without all of this extra volume.

SailorSam

I had one of these phone calls to ask for a reading in my last house, it must be about 10yrs ago now. I was a little hesitant to give any information but the caller kept insisting that they were genuine and it was the way they did it now if the meter hadn't been read for ages. At the time i was self employed and working long hours so hardly ever at home in the day.
Sacsquacco, what's happening about the smart meters then, from what i've read i thought they'd be a good idea 'cos it would save me having to wait in, after both the electric and gas are read i always mark the calender in 3mths time but they can be a couple of weeks early or late.
Terrylw1, what exactly did you mean about the troubles customers face who try to switch supplier. I'm with BG now, if i were to get a smart meter does that mean i couldn't swop for a better deal if the rival firm didn't have the necessary technology to accept the readings.

Terrylw1

SailorSam wrote: »

I had one of these phone calls to ask for a reading in my last house, it must be about 10yrs ago now. I was a little hesitant to give any information but the caller kept insisting that they were genuine and it was the way they did it now if the meter hadn't been read for ages. At the time i was self employed and working long hours so hardly ever at home in the day.
Sacsquacco, what's happening about the smart meters then, from what i've read i thought they'd be a good idea 'cos it would save me having to wait in, after both the electric and gas are read i always mark the calender in 3mths time but they can be a couple of weeks early or late.
Terrylw1, what exactly did you mean about the troubles customers face who try to switch supplier. I'm with BG now, if i were to get a smart meter does that mean i couldn't swop for a better deal if the rival firm didn't have the necessary technology to accept the readings.

You can switch, however this is still a trial technology and the industry is still discussing what and how to implement.

So, if you switch to a company running trials, they can refuse to run you as a smart meter customer or accept you into the current trials. However, Bgas are using different technology to some hence it cant be guaranteed you would be able to keep the new functions.

The policy is to "dumb down" the meter before you switch, hence you new supplier is told it is a standard meter. So, you don't benefit at all from the functions that persuaded you to go on smart.

Will BGas tell you before you agree to the new meter, not sure? I've seen this happen to switching Bgas customers who were expecting the functions would carry over, they dont.

The same happened with import/export (microgeneration) years ago. Bgas were ahead of other suppliers running trials and the result was switching customers who had no knowledge of the industry situation and all such customers had lots of problems as the suppler had the right to refuse the FIT contract and worse, couldn't even set some customers up. You can go anywhere now for FIT though and the metering set up works as its now rolled out...but smart isn't that far on yet.

davehsug

What on earth is the problem here? People moan incessantly about estimated bills & when companies do something to try avoid them they're panned! If they do get shirty about demanding a reading that's different, but surely phoning & asking isn't too bad?

[Deleted User]

another one who has nt quite got it,Davehsug, have you actually taken in anything at all, along with Joyful.Last time I say this for this pairs benefit only.British gas are phoning disabled,ill,VERY aged,unsteady,dementia sufferers,frail etc etc to collect meter readings from (FOR THESE PEOPLE) meters placed in awkward and downright dangerous places, eg high up,deep under the stairs,outside in boxes in difficult places where they can and will,and already have, fallen and injured themselves to satisfy Brit Gas latest profit making wheeze.Obviously you two are quite able bodied,but you havent got any sense especially Joyful whos only parroting her companys stupid latest idea.I also work for British Gas, but I m not into blind loyalty to them