British Gas ranked the worst vitality agency for customer support

British Gas has been named because the worst vitality agency for buyer satisfaction by client group Which?. 

It discovered there was little to separate the remaining corporations with the bottom buyer scores – Boost, Scottish Power, Ovo Energy, Shell Energy, EDF Energy and E.ON Next.

At the opposite finish of the size, Octopus Energy, Ecotricity and E (Gas & Electricity) achieved the very best buyer scores.

British Gas, which provides greater than a fifth of households in Britain, obtained an general rating of 56 per cent.

Energy tables: Which? has put British Gas backside of the pile in its newest buyer satisfaction rankings

It scored simply two stars for many classes, together with accessibility – or whether or not a buyer can have interaction with it successfully, worth for cash and accuracy of vitality funds.

It obtained three stars – a mean rating – for customer support general.

But different opinions of British Gas are extra constructive in regards to the agency – akin to Trustpilot, which suggests name wait occasions are down and buyer satisfaction is on the up. 

The watchdog surveyed greater than 9,000 vitality clients in October 2023 for its annual buyer satisfaction survey and in addition assessed 18 vitality corporations’ behind-the-scenes practices and insurance policies to compile an general rating.

Octopus Energy obtained an general rating of 73 per cent and was the one agency to attain a five-star score for general customer support.

Ecotricity and E (Gas & Electricity) scored 72 per cent and 71 per cent respectively.

They additionally obtained 4 stars for his or her general customer support and high quality of communications about vitality prices.

The information comes as Centrica chief govt Chris O’Shea immediately advised BBC Breakfast that he ‘couldn’t justify’ his £4.5million-a-year pay packet.

O’Shea mentioned: ‘You can not justify a wage of that measurement. It’s an enormous sum of money, to anyone trying it’s a enormous sum of money.

‘It’s not for me to set my very own pay, it’s not so that you can set your personal pay. But you have to recognise, whenever you’ve obtained people who find themselves struggling… I have a look at my mum, on the fundamental state pension, it is simply not possible to justify, so there is no such thing as a level in attempting to try this.’ 

A spokesman for Centrica, which owns British Gas, mentioned: ‘This survey is behind the curve and is predicated on knowledge that’s as much as a yr previous. 

‘We recognize all buyer suggestions and might affirm the problems raised in these two case research referring to the provider of final resort course of from 2021 have been resolved. 

‘Since that interval, we have focused greater than £25million of funding on bettering service and clients are seeing a distinction – this contains hiring 700 new contact centre brokers and lengthening our opening occasions. 

‘We proceed to be targeted on customer support and serving to our most weak clients via our sector-leading £100million buyer help bundle.’