Hate Your Gas & Electricity Supplier? Don’t Get All Fired Up... Just Switch! Part 2

If you haven’t read Part 1 of this blog post, you can check it our here:

Hate Your Gas & Electricity Supplier? Don’t Get All Fired Up... Just Switch! - Part 1

This time we’ll compile a longer list, a ‘specification’ if you like – Read through this list and decide whether your current supplier squares up to each point (but please don’t get frustrated or ‘run out of energy’ doing this– there is ‘light’ at the end of this tunnel :-)

• High customer satisfaction and positive feedback – happy, smiley customers that are happy to refer other people and recommend the energy services.
• Easy to switch, risk-free to try with no-obligation and no contract!
• Energy company doesn’t waste £millions on advertising that their customers have to pay for! Customer saves money!
• Call Centre in the UK, not overseas – an overseas Call Centre might be cheaper for the supplier, but extremely frustrating for the customers.
• Great customer service / aftercare. Online customer service must be of same high standard as offline. You should still be able to speak with a real person if ever you have to query your online statement.
• Great value for money, where prices are consistently at the lower end of the market.
• Unbiased energy surveys/reviews/comparisons by trusted and reputable online and offline companies that don’t pay commissions to get featured!
• No more wasting time frequently switching suppliers – customer can get on with more important things in life!
• Genuine price promise/guarantee with no tie-ins. Would you trust a company that locks you into a fixed-term/capped contract at a supposedly “lower price” on the premise that your bills would be cheaper?
• Simple, un-confusing, easy-to-understand tariffs, i.e. one price level - are 2 (primary and secondary) units really necessary? No hidden charges, e.g. Standing Charge should be shown separately.

Let’s home in on a couple of these issues in more detail, right now:

Firstly, rumours abound that customers of a certain multi-utility supplier are better off because they pay the same low, single rate all year round ;-) In summer, when consumption is lower, their customers pay far less than customers of other companies that charge the first or primary level of units at a higher rate of consumption. So for about 6 months of the year, their prices are sometimes double that of the aforementioned multi-utility supplier.

Secondly, most energy companies ‘panic’ customers into signing up for fixed/capped tariffs, leading them into believing that prices are going to keep increasing. Capped tariffs can be up to 20% more expensive than non-capped. This means that customers on capped tariffs are paying 2010/11/12 prices RIGHT NOW!

Well, that just about wraps this post up. In a future post, I will be revealing some insider secrets that the major energy suppliers won’t be pleased about seeing in the public domain! Until then, stay warm this winter ;-)

Vijay V. Patel

I’m hoping that you found this article both agreeable and worthwhile sharing with your Twitter friends – in which case, please feel free to hit the “retweet” button on this post. Many thanks.