Which collective switches are yet to come?

footyguy

teddysmum wrote: »

My worry is that if the big companies make so many mistakes, the smaller ones will be worse, due to inexperience. At least the big ones give compensation for errors (Well Npower does. I've earned over £50 in the last year, from small error complaints).

The other way to view matters is that a company with say 10 million customer accounts is more likely to produce errors, and when you report it, you will be treated as just a number.

With smaller suppliers that have maybe have only 1000 customer accounts to handle, the supplier can (a) hopefully ensure an error doesn't arise and (b) treat you as an individual in the unlikely event an error does occur.

I don't think errors occur due to a supplier's inexperience. Usually it occurs due to something changing (such as a tariff), and then that supplier having to process that change for many, many customers.

martyp

teddysmum wrote: »

My worry is that if the big companies make so many mistakes, the smaller ones will be worse, due to inexperience. At least the big ones give compensation for errors (Well Npower does. I've earned over £50 in the last year, from small error complaints).

British Gas certainly didn't for me, even when I got annoyed about them taking out the direct debit out twice the weekend before pay day (worst time!). Scottish Power gave me compensation for dragging out resolution on a couple of issues I had with them but only after I had raised it with the ombudsman.

martyp

footyguy wrote: »

The other way to view matters is that a company with say 10 million customer accounts is more likely to produce errors, and when you report it, you will be treated as just a number.

With smaller suppliers that have maybe have only 1000 customer accounts to handle, the supplier can (a) hopefully ensure an error doesn't arise and (b) treat you as an individual in the unlikely event an error does occur.

I don't think errors occur due to a supplier's inexperience. Usually it occurs due to something changing (such as a tariff), and then that supplier having to process that change for many, many customers.

I totally agree - my experience has only been with big suppliers and the agony of getting things resolved between various departments that are often very much disconnected from each other and the involvement also of offshore customer service teams leads to never ending messes and passing the buck. Like the time Scottish Power transferred me all over the place for about an hour saying the problem was down to me just moving house when I hadn't for about 10 years but they were too busy transferring me all over the place from one confused person to another all with a different theory. When I called Iresa the person was able to help with all the queries. If anything with a small company they might put you on hold for a moment to check with a colleague but chances are they might be talking to someone they actually know in the same building.
I also know first hand how much of a mess occurs with the big companies when they upgrade all their IT systems and outsource their IT abroad...
I noticed Zog proudly states they're 100% UK based and I believe Iresa are as well.

Raxiel

Big companies are the worst for "Computer says no". They have these big monolithic processes that no one employee is willing to overrule, and they forget that it's still a business run by humans and a human will always be able to make a decision, stating "There's nothing we can do"

(Of course that assumes that the person able to make a decisioncan be bothered to, and they're not so high up the totem pole they play golf on company time)

Small companies don't have that, although they can have... eccentricities.