My move to Octopus

LeesArt

I was pleasantly surprised with my move to Octopus, there have been some teething problems but I will give them a chance to resolve before passing judgement. 

The Octopus portal  does lack a full navigation menu so you often find trouble finding a page you got to previously by clicking a hyperlink.  I have had to create a folder in Bookmarks and stick things in there.  

Also on the my energy usage it did not show my historic reads, staff said to wait until it had been ported but later I found them on a link at the bottom of that page which had the old screen.

I have been able to retain my variable direct debit which would have caused me to leave if it was not available.

One thing that does concern me is the offshore call centre, they are not as well equipped or as well trained as the UK Staff, they are perfectly pleasant but they are essentially a message taking service for the most part.  I have had two messages from them that basically tell me to go visit the website when I had already done that.

Does anyone have a secret phone number that guarantees you connect to the UK Staff?

They told me the only option was to call back, wait 30 minutes for the call to be answered only to have to hang up and try again as they have no way to transfer to UK staff.

If this carries on the ads will not represent the image portrayed in the massive ad campaigns.

If they can sort out the Direct Debit issues then I will hopefully not have to call them much, despite the above I am very pleased overall, the bills are a joy, just two pages rather than the tomes of needless pages I would get with Shell.

Petriix

The secret phone number is to send them a public message on X (Twitter). They're always super responsive and helpful on there. 

Alnat1

Don't think I've ever spoken to anyone in an overseas call centre and calls have always been answered in around 5 minutes. Maybe this is something new as I haven't needed to call them recently.

LeesArt

Petriix said:

The secret phone number is to send them a public message on X (Twitter). They're always super responsive and helpful on there. 

Sadly I don't have such an account, I tend to stay away from social media, does this site count, eeek!

MultiFuelBurner

I have an X account for one reason only, to contact companies I have products and services with.

stripling

One thing that does concern me is the offshore call centre, they are not as well equipped or as well trained as the UK Staff, they are perfectly pleasant but they are essentially a message taking service for the most part.  I have had two messages from them that basically tell me to go visit the website when I had already done that.

Whaaat? Offshore call centre? Since when? Are you sure it's not an AI bot?  😳🫣

One of Octopus' big selling points is how their CS is better than others and your account is kept within a small team who have a degree of autonomy. But I rarely call them. So I don't know if it has changed. 

Netexporter

The only offshore call centre I'm aware of is when Octopus utilised their New Zealand customer service, during the energy crisis, so as to provide 24 hour service.

LeesArt

Alnat1 said:

Don't think I've ever spoken to anyone in an overseas call centre and calls have always been answered in around 5 minutes. Maybe this is something new as I haven't needed to call them recently.

Welcome to the new Normal

Chordeiles

Lately it's always a South African voice that calls me to fob me off instead of actually answering the points in my emails.  In an attempt to contact someone in the uk I copy my emails to greg@octopus.energy but never saw a reply from anyone with actual answers to my queries.
Be assured that customer support is all outsourced now.  And Octopus are slipping off their customer satisfaction pedestal.

wrf12345

There are quite a few things that you should be able to do on their website that require a phone call but recent calls (for variable DD and changing tariff - not doable on site if on a fixed term) answered and resolved well within five minutes, From the accents, mix of UK and foreigners. Their system does recognise your phone number and tries to allocate the same person each time but I use a different mobile for calls out as it is cheaper so long waits may be down to waiting for the right team to become available.

Gerry1

wrf12345 said:

Their system does recognise your phone number and tries to allocate the same person each time but I use a different mobile for calls out as it is cheaper so long waits may be down to waiting for the right team to become available.

You have a mobile where outgoing calls to toll-free 0808 numbers are cheaper??  That means they pay you to make such calls.

I want one of those phones !