What's more important cost or service?

mprice1988

Hello,

I work for an energy company as a customer service adviser and i would like to know everyone thoughts on whether they consider cost or service to be more important?

On a daily basis, at work, it would appear to me that most customers generally care about cost and not service/short waiting times?

Any thoughts?...

I'mcomingbackasaman

My thoughts are as a consumer is I wish Joe public weren't at the mercy of energy companies hiking prices up in the winter and lowering them in the summer. We should have more choice and have more alternative fuels. Energy companies cause debt in some cases.
I don't think the consumer receives good service from energy providers, unless your paying a bill over the telephone by credit card and that dept always seems to respond fast, while other depts we try to get through to you give you 4 choices followed by 3 choices with the energy co. boasting about their services ...just what you need after a day at work (not :=)
I'm seriously thinking of having my gas/electricity supply cut off and just use the basics, candles/davy lamps/torches/paraffin lamps, solar lighting etc etc obviously I'd need a generator so I could access MSE.

smudger1964

I personally find good customer service preferable to the absolute cheapest price. I am with Powergen whos customer service via their freephone number in my experience is excellent.They are not the cheapest on the price comparison sites for me that its Brit Gas but i have experienced trying to contact them which gives me so much stress that i would rather pay a little extra.Npower are also a pain to contact and with these companies you are paying for the call to spend 30 minutes to listen to the recorded voice telling you that you are important to them.So for me its good customer service every time

ben500

Most customers never envisage needing "service" from their energy supplier so generally give little notice to this when seeking a supplier, until they need to avail themselves of the service that is, it's when they actually have to deal with dontgiveashit.com that they make decisions to walk and seek out service at the expense of price.

mprice1988

Some good points have been said. My opinion is that service and low wait times do count for a fair bit because with problems can easily arise with changing supplier, estimated bills, power cuts etc.

Although it would appear that you are under the mercy of these big energy groups who can charge what they like!

What do people think about having a 3/6 contract with a company and at a fixed price?

Hazzanet

I've had some experience with a few suppliers, and luckily I've landed on my feet most of the time. My experiences are:

Ecotricity: (Elec) Quick to answer the phone, very polite and cheery, but I got tired of phoning them every three months for a bill. I ended up explaining that part of the price I pay is for accurate and timely bills. Time with supplier: 9 months.

British Gas: (Gas) Awful. Need I say more? Time with supplier: 3 months.

Scottish Power: (Dual Fuel) Really good on-line service, phone backup excellent. The only gripe is they kept messing round with my DD, which annoys the hell out of me. Time with supplier: 2+1/2 years.

Equigas (SSE): (Gas) Just moved to them and they've been excellent so far. Time with supplier: 2 months and counting.

Powergen: (Electric) Just moved to their Online tariff. Phone backup has been weak so far, but not completely unacceptable. Will give it some time to see whether the billing is any good. 2 months and counting.

Would I pay more for better service? Yes, very much so, but within reason.

BBB

Powergen's main plus with customer service, for me anyway as a BG worker is it's free to call and there's no options as all the staff are trained in all aspects, credit/PP/homemovers/services.

Ken68

The multitude of tariffs is at the root of a lot of the service problems. Top notch administrative service should be the norm.
If you go into a garage for motor repairs you have no need to ask "how is the company for sending out bills and response times for poor clerical work"