How important is service?

ForestBluebells

Super_Stomper said:

I look for a low price provider and hope that they will provide accurate monthly billing based on my given meter readings. The smaller companies have generally done this as well as being cheaper. I now expect monthly statements as well as paying by monthly DD. Thrown by EDF only wanting 6-monthy readings and sending 6-monthly invoices despite me paying by monthly DD. Big opportunity for them to under/over charge! I would like all companies to be obliged to state their billing frequency on their websites when you do a price comparison and before you sign up!

I’m with EDF currently and this annoyed me as I couldn’t tell if I was on track or not. They also kept refunding my credit in December but winter is when I want credit as my usage is higher than my dd! I kept having to pay back the refund 

Swipe

If you call up EDF they will generate you a one off bill if you ask. So you could do this twice a year for quarterly billing.

_Jem_

For me at the moment service is important, at the moment I don't have a constant usage for electricity as I have moved in to a new home I'm slowly getting things so my electricity usage will slowly go up, I'm sticking with eon for another 12 months but after that I will consider moving to the cheapest which always seems to be Symbio. As my usage will slowly go up I'm to worried of cheaper places getting things wrong. 

ForestBluebells

Swipe said:

If you call up EDF they will generate you a one off bill if you ask. So you could do this twice a year for quarterly billing.

I tried to get them to generate me an invoice and it was a real pain in the butt. They wouldn’t accept my meter readings even though I have a smart meter and I took a photo of the meter for them too. Took ages to do then they told me they can’t generate an invoice. Eventually I got one but it took a lot of attempts

macman

I've had about 6 previous suppliers go under in recent years. The service from all but one was perfectly acceptable (in terms of billing and customer service). The sole exception was the late and unlamented Iresa, who were just hopeless from day one.
More recently I was with RHE and Yorkshire Energy: both were fine.
Poor customer service doesn't necessarily mean that the supplier is not going to last very long: the (former) Big Six managed to get away with it for years.

brewerdave

macman said:

I've had about 6 previous suppliers go under in recent years. The service from all but one was perfectly acceptable (in terms of billing and customer service). The sole exception was the late and unlamented Iresa, who were just hopeless from day one.
More recently I was with RHE and Yorkshire Energy: both were fine.
Poor customer service doesn't necessarily mean that the supplier is not going to last very long: the (former) Big Six managed to get away with it for years.

Ditto here - even IRESA weren't that bad!! However, I've had more than a few problems with the SOLRs subsequently appointed by OFGEM.

macman

Agreed: when YE folded, SP became the SOLR, they were dire until I jumped ship to Neon Reef.
On the other side, I went from RHE to BG and the latter have been fine.

Bacman

@Gerry1 - I think basically what you're saying is whomever you do business with seem to go bust!  Please therefore, don't go with Green Energy; they're the best energy company i've dealt with for years and I don't want them to go bust! 

Gerry1

Bacman said:

@Gerry1 - I think basically what you're saying is whomever you do business with seem to go bust!  Please therefore, don't go with Green Energy; they're the best energy company i've dealt with for years and I don't want them to go bust! 

Seem to be an occupational hazard if you go for a good value company: if they're lean and mean there's not much fat to trim when times get hard.  Fortunately it hasn't caused me any grief but I fear that their staff may not all have been so fortunate.

Andy7856

Dont forget people with bad experiences tend to leave bad reviews, those with good experiences dont often bother leaving any review. 

I am with Shell, it gets bad reviews on their facebook page  proper angry comments - but personally never had a problem.  I send a reading every month, get billed that month, only contacted CS once in 8 months for 1 question.  Its not like you are paying more for "better" energy.  Cheapest is fine for me.