An energy company that is okay to deal with?

Keep_pedalling

How exactly did you inherit two accounts? When you become responsible for a property you set up new ones.

Presumably all your DD problems were with to do with the amount you are paying per month, Octopus allow you to pay as you go by DD so you have variable payments based on how much you use, that would be a better option the to pay more for not using DD.

Spoonie_Turtle

TheElectricCow said:

born_again said:

TheElectricCow said:

Octopus are generally considered to be the best supplier out there at the moment on the customer service front, you might find it’ll be more worth while trying to resolve whatever issue you’re having with them than searching for an alternative.

Since joining around a year ago I’ve found their service underwhelming and not even close to living up to their reputation, but I wouldn’t dream of going elsewhere knowing things would likely be even worse. At least Octopus do tend to be more competent and capable than others, as long as you can get through to someone who is both responsive and attentive enough to provide relevant solutions to queries.

One thing I did pick up from an Octopus blog post is that each account is assigned to one of a small team of around 10 customer service agents, meaning that whenever you contact them you only deal with one of those people. It would certainly explain why some people here report outstanding efficient service and others would have an easier time drawing blood from a rock, if the service you receive is entirely a luck of the draw situation based on who you’re assigned to.

Given. Octopus serves 5.3 million customers through its retail arm. It just not seem feasible that they would have 500,000 staff.. Given they only state 3K+
I wounder if that figure if referring to complaints.

Found the article I read it from https://octopus.energy/blog/customer-service/?utm_source=app&utm_medium=latest_news&utm_campaign=customer_service

2) Our specialists are all split into special teams of around 10 people.

Each team is like its own micro-business, completely responsible for looking after a group of customers – so even in a business of five million customers, you’re going to speak to the same small team of people every time. There’ll be a good chance they might be familiar with your issue already.

I agree that with those numbers working out to around 18,000 customers per team of 10 that doesn’t sound hugely practical at first thought, but then again I’ve no idea how often the average customer needs to engage with their supplier. I have, in the past, had to wait a month to get a relevant answer out of Octopus though, so from my perspective it seems they could do with a few more staff after all (or at least get that Octo-AI that does customer service I’ve heard so much about running in full swing).

Nooo the AI has been utterly useless for me!  I only ever e-mail them for something I can't do online, and the AI responds to key words not my actual query, directing me to the online options that aren't suitable for what I've needed.  

Once a human looks at it then everything's absolutely fine, sorted quickly, but trying to get to the human via e-mail is the major hurdle. 

Phoning them or tweeting is MUCH better though.

I am intrigued what the subject of them contacting OP is, sending letters is their absolute last resort since paperless is both their default and their preference.  It's not an end-of-life meter by any chance is it, OP?

ArbitraryRandom

Spoonie_Turtle said:

TheElectricCow said:

born_again said:

TheElectricCow said:

Octopus are generally considered to be the best supplier out there at the moment on the customer service front, you might find it’ll be more worth while trying to resolve whatever issue you’re having with them than searching for an alternative.

Since joining around a year ago I’ve found their service underwhelming and not even close to living up to their reputation, but I wouldn’t dream of going elsewhere knowing things would likely be even worse. At least Octopus do tend to be more competent and capable than others, as long as you can get through to someone who is both responsive and attentive enough to provide relevant solutions to queries.

One thing I did pick up from an Octopus blog post is that each account is assigned to one of a small team of around 10 customer service agents, meaning that whenever you contact them you only deal with one of those people. It would certainly explain why some people here report outstanding efficient service and others would have an easier time drawing blood from a rock, if the service you receive is entirely a luck of the draw situation based on who you’re assigned to.

Given. Octopus serves 5.3 million customers through its retail arm. It just not seem feasible that they would have 500,000 staff.. Given they only state 3K+
I wounder if that figure if referring to complaints.

Found the article I read it from https://octopus.energy/blog/customer-service/?utm_source=app&utm_medium=latest_news&utm_campaign=customer_service

2) Our specialists are all split into special teams of around 10 people.

Each team is like its own micro-business, completely responsible for looking after a group of customers – so even in a business of five million customers, you’re going to speak to the same small team of people every time. There’ll be a good chance they might be familiar with your issue already.

I agree that with those numbers working out to around 18,000 customers per team of 10 that doesn’t sound hugely practical at first thought, but then again I’ve no idea how often the average customer needs to engage with their supplier. I have, in the past, had to wait a month to get a relevant answer out of Octopus though, so from my perspective it seems they could do with a few more staff after all (or at least get that Octo-AI that does customer service I’ve heard so much about running in full swing).

Nooo the AI has been utterly useless for me!  I only ever e-mail them for something I can't do online, and the AI responds to key words not my actual query, directing me to the online options that aren't suitable for what I've needed.  

Once a human looks at it then everything's absolutely fine, sorted quickly, but trying to get to the human via e-mail is the major hurdle. 

Phoning them or tweeting is MUCH better though.

I am intrigued what the subject of them contacting OP is, sending letters is their absolute last resort since paperless is both their default and their preference.  It's not an end-of-life meter by any chance is it, OP?

I'm wondering if the best approach is to email 'can I talk to a human please'?

Spoonie_Turtle

ArbitraryRandom said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

TheElectricCow said:

born_again said:

TheElectricCow said:

Octopus are generally considered to be the best supplier out there at the moment on the customer service front, you might find it’ll be more worth while trying to resolve whatever issue you’re having with them than searching for an alternative.

Since joining around a year ago I’ve found their service underwhelming and not even close to living up to their reputation, but I wouldn’t dream of going elsewhere knowing things would likely be even worse. At least Octopus do tend to be more competent and capable than others, as long as you can get through to someone who is both responsive and attentive enough to provide relevant solutions to queries.

One thing I did pick up from an Octopus blog post is that each account is assigned to one of a small team of around 10 customer service agents, meaning that whenever you contact them you only deal with one of those people. It would certainly explain why some people here report outstanding efficient service and others would have an easier time drawing blood from a rock, if the service you receive is entirely a luck of the draw situation based on who you’re assigned to.

Given. Octopus serves 5.3 million customers through its retail arm. It just not seem feasible that they would have 500,000 staff.. Given they only state 3K+
I wounder if that figure if referring to complaints.

Found the article I read it from https://octopus.energy/blog/customer-service/?utm_source=app&utm_medium=latest_news&utm_campaign=customer_service

2) Our specialists are all split into special teams of around 10 people.

Each team is like its own micro-business, completely responsible for looking after a group of customers – so even in a business of five million customers, you’re going to speak to the same small team of people every time. There’ll be a good chance they might be familiar with your issue already.

I agree that with those numbers working out to around 18,000 customers per team of 10 that doesn’t sound hugely practical at first thought, but then again I’ve no idea how often the average customer needs to engage with their supplier. I have, in the past, had to wait a month to get a relevant answer out of Octopus though, so from my perspective it seems they could do with a few more staff after all (or at least get that Octo-AI that does customer service I’ve heard so much about running in full swing).

Nooo the AI has been utterly useless for me!  I only ever e-mail them for something I can't do online, and the AI responds to key words not my actual query, directing me to the online options that aren't suitable for what I've needed.  

Once a human looks at it then everything's absolutely fine, sorted quickly, but trying to get to the human via e-mail is the major hurdle. 

Phoning them or tweeting is MUCH better though.

I am intrigued what the subject of them contacting OP is, sending letters is their absolute last resort since paperless is both their default and their preference.  It's not an end-of-life meter by any chance is it, OP?

I'm wondering if the best approach is to email 'can I talk to a human please'?

That's a good idea.  I did respond the last time to the initial reply by saying something like 'I'm not sure if this was the AI or a human having a bad day, but … ' and still got a response that didn't help - but it would be worth a try explicitly asking.

KxMx

Not that impressed with Octopus either.

Been waiting 18 weeks for a gas SM meter issue to be sorted, original timescale 6 weeks, just had to repeat myself all over again to CS and been told the original solution they decided on (that I've been waiting for an engineer appointment to do), probably isn't the right answer!

And they've decided to randomly start billing me twice monthly for electricity- two months running. September I'm pretty sure it was due to tariff change, October no idea! Going to ask about this tomorrow. 

I'm also a PSR customer which hasn't made a blind bit of difference to them. 

QrizB

TheElectricCow said:

Honestly seems like the worst way to do it in my opinion, especially when you end up waiting extra weeks after one person out of the small team goes on holiday so no one else will touch your case. But then again I don’t run a customer service operation on the scale Octopus does so I’d have to assume they know better than me.

My experience is that if my usual contact (let's call her Alice) is out of the office on holiday, one of the others on the team (let's say Bob) will reply, apologising for Alice's absence and answering my query.

Then when Alice is back, she'll pick up where Bob left off.

markin

You can set your own DD on the website, Many get no bother with it set at £1 and topping up manually monthly.

AlexaJay

I'm going to give a bit more detail about my experience with Octopus and then leave it at that. I didn't want to write a lot initially as people generally don't want to read a lot. 

The daily phone calls came when I was on holiday and a few days late paying my bill. As I said before, I have an excellent track record in paying bills and credit rating, so this seemed excessive. They would not stop phoning even after I told them I was away and would pay the bill as soon as I could get online. The calls continued and even went twice-daily.

The letters started coming as soon as I took over the account. One said 'if we don't hear from you we'll write again in two weeks' and a few days later, another letter came. And then another. I've been running a household for decades and never known anything like it. 

I don't want to get a direct debit, having had experiences of energy companies over-estimating the amount I needed to pay and then keeping the excess once I'd transferred. This is now recognised as common practice - people need to wake up a bit! For a similar reason, I don't want to get a smart meter. Together with DDs, that creates a system in which the energy companies can basically help themselves to your bank account while rationing your energy usage.

In the longer term, I plan to go off-grid as the whole system seems skewed against the consumer. But in the short term I would still welcome any constructive suggestions of alternatives.

GingerTim

AlexaJay said:

I don't want to get a direct debit, having had experiences of energy companies over-estimating the amount I needed to pay and then keeping the excess once I'd transferred. This is now recognised as common practice - people need to wake up a bit! 

Really? First I've heard of it.

AlexaJay

I would also add that it looks as if Octopus may be skewing their views, thus creating the impression they have the 'best' service. If you look at Trustpilot you will see a couple of abandoned accounts showing much lower satisfaction scores. On another review site  - sorry, can't remember which one but worth digging a bit if you're interested - I saw that many Octopus reviews had been 'requested' by the company itself. And when I wrote my own review I received an email from Trustpilot saying Octopus had requested more details from me and if I didn't provide them the review would be taken down.

I am sharing this in the hope that this information will be useful to others.