We changed from a Pay As You Go electricity metre ten days ago and yet trying to establish a tariff and direct debit with BG is proving an almost insurmountable task. I Have phoned to be told someone will call back. I still await that. I have emailed twice to receive a reply that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my query and nothing to the second not even an acknowledgement. I have just emailed Ian Peters, Managing Director British Gas and have at least received an acknowledgement which is a step further than the woeful customer service. I am fully aware he is unlikely to deal with my issue but in the past going to the top often gets the quickest response. I have had nothing but poor service from BG, I no longer get my gas from them and soon as I get the tariff sorted I will be moving supplier. What is it with these major companies that consider decent customer service a thing for smaller companies. Is that they have so many customers that alienating a few really does not matter when it comes to overall profit? Rant over.
A good customer service department no doubt costs a lot of money. It will almost always be something that gets out sourced/cut/downgraded in favour of saving profit margins. See it all the time with smaller companies that get bigger based on their good service - I tend to see it mostly with ISP's, Be* There being the most recent for me. Started well, everyone recommending their products etc, got bigger and the customer service nose-dived.
I totally agree about Be as I was with them and of course when Sky took over that was any semblance of decent customer service right out the window. Gone to Plusnet now and there service is not quite as good as they would have you believe.
They might be slow, but they'll get there in the end; and if you complain they will (again slowly) respond favourably. They over-charged us by £60 for a Home Care call out (our boiler was on the fritz), so we rang up and complained, first person told us that there was nothing they could do, so we had to raise a complaint, which we did. Rang up two weeks later to check on progress of said complaint, and the person on the phone said that a complaint was unnecessary and refunded us the charge there and then. 3 months later, we get a letter from the complaints department saying that although the charge was legit, they would refund us half (£30). In addition they apologised for the delay in dealing with our complaint, so they gave us a good will gesture of £50, so we ended up being paid £20 for them to fix our boiler
Yeah, family member is with Plusnet and doesn't have a great deal of good things to say. Maybe check out Xilo, they're who I moved to from Be* and they've been sterling every step of the way. That said, I'm on a slightly 'grandfathered in' package with unlimited Infinity2 - But they really do mean unlimited. Or at least as far as I can test!
I experienced the same poor customer service with British Gas... had a pre-pay elec meter in our house when we moved in and BG said it would take 60 days of us living there before they could arrange to replace it with a normal meter. This didn't seem right to me so I called up Eon (who supplied my old house), who said there is no delay for a meter swap once they've taken over the meter so long as you pass the credit check. They took over the meter and arranged the engineer visit in 17 days, and actually swapped the meter out the week after. You don't need to wait for anything to be sorted with BG before you move to another energy supplier, the new supplier deals with it all. No Direct Debit needed with BG, you just get a final bill from them in the postonce the swap completes. Move both utilities to the same supplier, it's easy enough to do and you can normally get paid ~£30 to move too by using MSE: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub
I have just had a representative from BG concerning my complaint to the MD for BG and he reliably informs me that it is not GB's fault that I have yet been able to set a tariff or set up a direct debit. But it is all the fault of the Nation al Grid and the 28 day waiting period to set up the above is the industry standard. It seems in the 21st century the communication is still a major issue which i find hard to accept. when the fitter had finished fitting the meter he noted all the details on his tablet I then signed to say all was OK he then uploaded the info to the National Grid data base where it then does what it does for 28 days before being passed to BG who will then contact me and sort out tariff and direct debit. When asked why this information is not made known to us that have had our meters changed the rep was unable to give a reasonable answer. When I hear the words industry standard and other phrases like we all do things this way I despair of the poor excuses and service.
Who's GB? surely not Great Britain lol FYI they do overcharge a tad though I've just been refunded £800 from British Gas I think of it as a saving scheme lol
