Octopus Tracker

[Deleted User]

fryedslyce said:

Imagine how awful their customer service will become if they end up taking on Bulb's 1.7 million customers. 

They could spend some of the billion pounds or more that they asked to be paid to take the customers on improving things I suppose.

QrizB

Ultrasonic said:

Griffindog said:

It has taken about a week to get my latest bill this time. I submit readings every 8-10 days and it usually takes at least 2 days for the bill to be produced.

Why on earth do you want a bill every 8-10 days? That's a huge waste of Octopus' resources.

I do the same with Tracker. Readings on the 10th, 20th and last of the month.

I wouldn't call an automated pdf by email a huge waste of resources.

fryedslyce

Deleted_User said:

fryedslyce said:

Imagine how awful their customer service will become if they end up taking on Bulb's 1.7 million customers. 

They could spend some of the billion pounds or more that they asked to be paid to take the customers on improving things I suppose.

The billion would be a loan, so no chance of that happening.

Griffindog

Ultrasonic said:

Griffindog said:

It has taken about a week to get my latest bill this time. I submit readings every 8-10 days and it usually takes at least 2 days for the bill to be produced.

Why on earth do you want a bill every 8-10 days? That's a huge waste of Octopus' resources.

I don’t have a smart meter. If we get a few days of low prices I submit readings every 1-2 days and do all my washing/cooking on cheap days so I can take advantage of the lower price.  When I do this I still only get one bill per week with all the readings included. It should all be automated although the pending amounts suggest that some bills are delayed for checking.

Spoonie_Turtle

Griffindog said:

Ultrasonic said:

Griffindog said:

It has taken about a week to get my latest bill this time. I submit readings every 8-10 days and it usually takes at least 2 days for the bill to be produced.

Why on earth do you want a bill every 8-10 days? That's a huge waste of Octopus' resources.

I don’t have a smart meter. If we get a few days of low prices I submit readings every 1-2 days and do all my washing/cooking on cheap days so I can take advantage of the lower price.  When I do this I still only get one bill per week with all the readings included. It should all be automated although the pending amounts suggest that some bills are delayed for checking.

So is that the maximum frequency of bills?  Might be worth us doing similar too then, if that's the case.

Ultrasonic

Griffindog said:

Ultrasonic said:

Griffindog said:

It has taken about a week to get my latest bill this time. I submit readings every 8-10 days and it usually takes at least 2 days for the bill to be produced.

Why on earth do you want a bill every 8-10 days? That's a huge waste of Octopus' resources.

I don’t have a smart meter. If we get a few days of low prices I submit readings every 1-2 days and do all my washing/cooking on cheap days so I can take advantage of the lower price.  When I do this I still only get one bill per week with all the readings included. It should all be automated although the pending amounts suggest that some bills are delayed for checking.

Makes sense 🙂. Sorry, posted a bit rashly above.

peter3hg

Spoonie_Turtle said:

SJMALBA said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

SJMALBA said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

It's been six days since submitting our meter reading, and I still have no bill for the month?  They've charged the account, but there's no bill.  I understand it likely takes longer than e.g. on the SVT or a fixed rate because they have to apportion use to each day (no smart meter - although they already have an estimate because my dashboard has a 'costs for today' that changes daily) but should it take this long?

Something similar happened to me for my July bill - submitted my meter readings on the 1st, as usual, and both fuels were held, pending checks - IIRC, gas was applied within 48 hours, but electricity took (again IIRC) around 1 week before finally being applied. I queried why this had happened, and was told that they had run a health check on the account and everything was fine (so no actual explanation as to what had happened), but they further said that it shouldn't happen again - August's bill was more 'normal' (electricity applied the following day, gas within 48 hours).

Interesting.  I am partly wondering whether the unusually low usage has flagged something up (~20% less than would be expected for the month, I'm not entirely sure why - it's not alarmingly low in the context of previous months, but doesn't fit the usual pattern of being higher than the previous month).

For the first day and a half it had the pending message on the account and that's gone since it's been charged, it's just the bill/statement that's missing.  I'm not overly concerned yet, just puzzled, and they have more important things to be sorting out right now.

Ah, that's different then, if it has been applied, but no bill - is the bill available in your online account, but you just haven't received the email, or is there no bill anywhere?

Before the switch to Tracker, my electricity charge was always applied straight away, with gas being held for up to 48 hours - the switch to Tracker (officially in July, but in reality backdated to April... long story) changed that, with both now being held; In this instance, I also wondered if a reduced usage was the explanation, but they didn't mention anything about that (and my electricity usage has been down in every month this year compared to last), so...?

No bill anywhere, I went into my account to check because I suddenly realised I didn't recall getting an e-mail.  Our electricity charge was always applied straight away before Tracker too, with the bill arriving within hours at most, sometimes under an hour.

peter3hg said:

I've not had a gas bill since moving to Tracker in mid June, but I'm assuming that is because I've used about 20 kWh of gas since then and not had any usage at all since late June.

My electricity bills have been produced as normal but that is on Go rather than Tracker.

Is it not odd to not have a bill for the gas standing charge though?

I'm guessing that the system needs a reading to trigger the bill (as it would without a smart meter) and it isn't triggering it because the reading hasn't changed.
I'll probably put in a manual reading before the end of the month to try and get a bill before the heating goes on.

MWT

Spoonie_Turtle said:

For the first day and a half it had the pending message on the account and that's gone since it's been charged, it's just the bill/statement that's missing.  I'm not overly concerned yet, just puzzled, and they have more important things to be sorting out right now.

I wouldn't worry, I had to get CS to poke Kraken following a small data outage, and it took several days after the bill charge appeared on my balance for the actual bill to be emailed to me.

Chrysalis

fryedslyce said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

It's been six days since submitting our meter reading, and I still have no bill for the month?  They've charged the account, but there's no bill.  I understand it likely takes longer than e.g. on the SVT or a fixed rate because they have to apportion use to each day (no smart meter - although they already have an estimate because my dashboard has a 'costs for today' that changes daily) but should it take this long?

No, it really shouldn't take that long, but on many fronts lately Octopus have been heading rapidly downhill.
They likely have expanded too quickly and don't have adequate customer service personnel.
This is a well trodden path with energy companies, if they don't pull things together soon it's very probable their service levels will deteriorate even further.

The CEO said Ofgem have an issue on two things related to internal processes (Octopus disagree with Ofgem on both), curious if any of these relate to CS experience.  Sadly he didint disclose the two things.

Chrysalis

QrizB said:

Ultrasonic said:

Griffindog said:

It has taken about a week to get my latest bill this time. I submit readings every 8-10 days and it usually takes at least 2 days for the bill to be produced.

Why on earth do you want a bill every 8-10 days? That's a huge waste of Octopus' resources.

I do the same with Tracker. Readings on the 10th, 20th and last of the month.

I wouldn't call an automated pdf by email a huge waste of resources.

I actually thought this was standard practice, in the past whenever I have submitted a reading its usually triggered a bill.  Interesting to know it isnt anymore.