EDF Energy has blamed its £160 million systems upgrade for soaring levels of customer complaints, but said service should return to normal “in the next month or so”.
Despite recruiting more than 700 extra staff, complaints have almost doubled year on year at the company, rising 91 per cent in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, according to figures compiled by Consumer Focus.
Customers have had to put up with long call waiting times, if they can get through at all, especially in the evening and at weekends. As a result, EDF Energy is the only big six supplier in the Consumer Focus service league table with a no star rating.
Complaints about the big six energy firms rose on average by around a quarter. Consumer Focus said that was unsurprising when energy bills were increasing. But EDF made the lowest percentage price increases of all the major suppliers, indicating that its poor service levels were fuelling consumer anger.
SSE has the best Consumer Focus rating, followed by British Gas, Eon-UK, Scottish Power and Npower, with EDF last. The watchdog described EDF’s performance as “unacceptable”.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 16 December 2011.
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