Energy company ScottishPower has been banned from making sales calls and conducting any other form of selling for 12 days after failing to clear a backlog of complaints.
The ban comes from energy regulator Ofgem and follows an investigation into ScottishPower’s treatment of its customers.
What ScottishPower was doing wrong
Ofgem found that customers were experiencing late bills, long waiting times on phone calls and the company was not implementing Energy Ombudsman rulings.
ScottishPower agreed to work towards three targets set by Ofgem to improve these. However, it failed to clear the backlog of Energy Ombudsman rulings in favour of customers by the end of November.
Sarah Harrison, Ofgem’s senior partner in charge of enforcement, said: “A sales ban illustrates the difficulties ScottishPower is having in delivering the levels of service customers deserve. While Ofgem’s targets have driven significant improvements in ScottishPower’s performance, we remain very concerned about how customers are being treated.”
Fed up with your energy company? See if you can switch and save
IT nightmare
The company actually received the lowest number of complaints per 100,000 customers of all the ‘Big Six’ energy companies in 2014, according to Ofgem figures.
[SPOTLIGHT]But it has been plagued by IT problems and has invested £200 million in a new system, but the transfer over to this has not gone smoothly either, meaning a struggle for many customers who do have complaints.
It has now stopped charging some customers for energy and written off past debts for others while it tries to put things right.
Neil Clitheroe, CEO of ScottishPower Retail & Generation, said in a statement: “We are all fully committed to delivering continued service improvements, return to the high service standards long associated with ScottishPower and ensure that our customers realise the very real benefits of our IT system investment.”
What happens next?
The sales ban is in place from today (4th March) until 15th March. ScottishPower says its telesales employees will spend the time helping out on customer service.
Ofgem is continuing its investigation and ScottishPower will also have to conduct an independent audit of its customer service processes.
Fed up with your energy company? See if you can switch and save