Economy Energy named UK’s worst energy supplier for the second time in a row
Find out how the UK’s largest and smallest energy providers ranked in the latest Citizens Advice survey.
Economy Energy has once again been named the worst energy provider by the latest Citizens Advice survey, making this the second quarter in a row that it’s come bottom of the league.
The Citizens Advice star rating system scores energy firms against five criteria including:
- Complaints ̶ how well energy suppliers handle customer complaints;
- Ease of switching ̶ the number of switches the supplier successfully carries out within 21 days;
- Ease of contact ̶ how highly people rate their supplier’s customer service;
- Bill clarity ̶ how easy people find it to understand their bills;
- Switch Guarantee ̶ whether the supplier is signed up to the switch guarantee that commits them to switching a customer within 21 days.
Economy Energy only managed to rack up a star rating of 1.8 out of 5 for the period of July to September 2017. That’s a fall from its previous low of 2.2 for its service between April and June this year.
It’s a particularly poor showing for the company, which had ranked third in the first quarter of the year, with a respectable score of 3.85. One customer had to seek help from Citizens Advice after chasing them for an accurate bill for five full months.
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First Utility led the way in this quarter's figures, scoring an impressive 4.4 out of 5 stars, closely followed by EDF Energy on 4.2.
That means First Utility has made some serious improvements since the start of the year, when it had a score of just 2.9 stars. SSE fell the furthest, from the top of the table last time to 10th place in the latest figures.
Here are the full results of the latest Citizens Advice survey, starting with the best performers this quarter:
|
Source: Citizens Advice
Ofgem satisfaction survey
Ofgem produces quarterly complaints statistics about the largest, medium-sized and small-sized energy firms.
The latest figures make an interesting backdrop to the findings of the Citizens Advice survey, with Ecotricity attracting the fewest complaints (32 per 100,000) in the second quarter of the year.
However, large independent supplier Utilita had the most complaints for the second quarter in a row with 6,005 per 100,000 recorded.
Below is a table showing how all the suppliers fared:
|
Supplier |
Q1 2017 complaints per 100,000 |
Q2 2017 complaints per 100,000 |
|
Ecotricity |
32 |
30 |
| Green Star Energy | 89 |
43 |
|
Flow Energy |
43 |
58 |
|
Economy Energy |
59 |
64 |
|
Ovo Energy |
79 |
79 |
|
Good Energy |
81 |
101 |
|
Spark Energy |
105 |
108 |
|
Extra Energy |
371 | 271 |
|
Utility Warehouse |
1,073 | 742 |
|
Co-operative |
691 |
786 |
|
First Utility |
2,052 | 1,182 |
|
British Gas |
1,463 |
1,393 |
|
npower |
2,200 | 1,986 |
|
SSE |
1,929 |
2,079 |
|
E.ON |
2,250 |
2,211 |
|
EDF Energy |
2,438 |
2,356 |
|
ScottishPower |
2,493 |
2,623 |
|
Utilita |
5,685 |
6,005 |
Source: Ofgem
Which? energy survey
In January, npower came bottom of the annual Which? energy company satisfaction survey for the seventh year running.
The survey asked nearly 9,000 energy customers to rate suppliers on a variety of factors including customer service, value for money and accuracy of bills.
Each supplier was then given a customer score based on their overall satisfaction rating and the likelihood of being recommended to a friend.
The average customer score was 56%, but npower scored just 44%.
Extra Energy customers were the next most fed up (49%) which matches up with the Citizens Advice and Ofgem findings, followed by Scottish Power (50%) and Co-operative Energy (54%).
Apart from EDF, which scored 55%, the other ‘Big Six’ suppliers either matched or just beat the average customer score. SSE and British Gas hit 56% while E.ON managed 57%.
The best performer was Ovo Energy for the second year running, which achieved a customer score of 78%.
Here’s how the all the suppliers stacked up:
Source: Which?
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Whoops, that should have said the website of economy energy did nothing. That was for the first three months that we were with them.
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We were with Scottish Power, which has an efficient website and the only reason for changing was the attraction of a reduction in fuel charges. What a disaster. I chose economy energy, which haD a website that did anything and even now that it is actually up and running is still useless. Separate bills for electric and gas were just produced randomly and sometimes direct debit payments were taken but did not appear on the stement and once, two payments were taken a day apart. When I reached a date when I could switch, this is what I chose to do. E E sent me a letter to say that I would be charged £25 for each utility. When I phoned, I was told that was a mistake (one of many). I swapped energy companies on 24 November and now, more than four weeks later, EE still has not produced final bills. I have phoned three times and been fobbed off. On the website, it shows that a bill was produced for gas, but when I click on to see the bill, an error message appears. DO NOT SIGN UP TO ECONOMY ENERGY.
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09 January 2018