Merits of switching

JJ_Egan

I have switched to non big 6 at least eight times .
One went bust but no problem taken over quickly .
Put my meter readings in every month and years total is around my DD total .

Robisere

AndyPK wrote: »

Mr Tin.

I decided an extra £35 a year was worth paying to go with one of the big 6 that I could get hold of to sort an issue out!

That's my reasoning too! Been with EDF >8 years now, always had good service, been assisted to solve two big problems which were not their fault. Always able to use the efficient Chatline to do anything on their very good website. Customer service for me, is first class. I value that more than saving a few pounds a year. It would take a pretty big error on their part for me to reconsider. In addition, I am offered a tariff choice every year.

My only problem is being unable to have a SM, but that is a problem of no signal reception here in the sticks.
No, don't tell me there is a solution, I've checked with every source: not possible at this postcode.

tk47

ThemeOne wrote: »

In the massive drive to get more people switching, which I'm sure was well intentioned, I think the only message that really got through was you could save money by doing so.

So a lot of people ended up switching to new suppliers, only to find they were too small to process the transfer efficiently, and/or provide much in the way of customer service.

We've been with many suppliers over the years, many of them in recent times small, and sometimes we have been within one of the first 1000 customers to join them.

We have never had any issues in switching to a new supplier, big or small (unless the old supplier causes issues)

Issues with a few of the small suppliers have been that they have gone bust unfortunately. But I think thats a risk you take when you opt for a market beating tariff.

But any supplier other than the Big 6 started off small at one time. Some are now over 20 years old! Some of those small suppliers have got bigger, and some have remained small.

In fact, what I would say is that when you get in early with a small supplier, you often get a very good deal and very good service (assuming they last the year out)

Offering low prices is a necessity to attact customers to them, so why not take advantage?
If they don't have many customers, then they have more time to concentrate on you as their customer.

Admittedly, sometimes you go through their 'growing pains' if you join them when their first start up. But they are often flexible enough to change if they are doing something that causes their customers an issue.

On the other hand, some of the worst customer service we have received was from a Big 6 supplier.
They often employ someone from Burger King to man their phone lines, often are unable to understand the question, let alone empowered to resolve it, and next week they will probably be at McDonalds!

With small companies, it's not unkown for the director to email you himself to resolve an issue or explain the situation.
(if you look through some of my past posts, you will see this did happen, and at least another MSEer had the same. Unfortunately, that was one of the small suppliers who did go bust)

You won't get that from a Big 6 supplier even if you attempt to email a CEO; their email is simply intercepted and sent to the standard CS personel to deal with.

As the saying goes, why keep a dog and bark yourself? In the case of some of the small companies, they obviously can't afford or had the time to source, a dog yet.

Joe9090

mac.d wrote: »

No suppliers, big or small, can currently get remote readings from SMETS1 smart meters, this has been a known issue for a long time

I think Eon are now starting to do it.

AndyPK wrote: »

Mr Tin.

That takes the biscuit.

AndyPK

Robisere wrote: »

That's my reasoning too! Been with EDF >8 years now, always had good service, been assisted to solve two big problems which were not their fault. Always able to use the efficient Chatline to do anything on their very good website. Customer service for me, is first class.

I've been with EDF a 4 years or more.


THey are annoying me now, particularly the complaints department.
It's probably my fault for switching tarrifs to much, (but it was a £100 saving)

Streaky_Bacon

tk47 wrote: »

On the other hand, some of the worst customer service we have received was from a Big 6 supplier.
They often employ someone from Burger King to man their phone lines, often are unable to understand the question, let alone empowered to resolve it, and next week they will probably be at McDonalds!

Quite right. Good customer service is not about having loads of people to answer the phone.

Utility Point always took two weeks to answer my emails, but always sorted the problem out, and were fair and professional.

My previous "Big 6" supplier always answered the phone, but when they did they gave me a pack of lies both about the back billing rules and about the facts of my complaint and carried those lies on all the way to an ombudsman, who found in my favour. They also failed to respond to a single email in 3 months (apart from automated responses), probably to avoid having anything in writing.

Frankly I think that anybody who pays extra for "Big 6" customer service is kidding themselves.

RelievedSheff

We dont use a lot of energy per year. We choose to be supplied by one of the big 6, in our case British Gas, for the peace of mind that they will still be around for the term of our contract.

The savings we would make by switching to smaller companies are so tiny that it just isn't worth the risk.

Since moving to our current new build home our Bill's are even smaller so the savings even less.

We dont need to ring customer services very often through out a contract so how quickly they answer the phone is largely irrelevant. We use online services wherever possible.