Toto Energy was “reset” ahead of its acquisition of Solarplicity’s customers after rapid growth resulted in a series of customer complaints issues, the company’s operations director has said.
Speaking to Utility Week Tom Nicholas admitted the company grew too quickly and as a result had to transfer thousands of its customers to Utilita last year.
He said: “At the time we were experiencing customer service issues. We have reset the company and built up our operation.
“95 per cent of customers are now billed on time, our operating procedures consist of call times below 2 and a half minutes. We have got in control of our backlogs, 92 per cent of emails are responded to within 24 hours.”
Nicholas added that the Utilita transaction allowed Toto to “stop and reset” itself.
Toto’s handling of the Utilita transaction was labelled as “appalling” by Citizens Advice, which said customers should have been given advance notice of the transfer.
Toto notified affected customers by email on 25 March last year, but customers also received an email from Utilita on the same day.
Victoria MacGregor, director of energy at Citizens Advice, said: “Toto Energy has done an appalling job of communicating this change to its customers.
“We think customers should have been given advance notice of the transfer, giving them the opportunity to decide whether to transfer automatically to Utilita or switch to another supplier.”
In March Chaitu Parikh, the former chief operating officer of US-based Crius Energy, was appointed as chairman of Toto. Parikh has previous experience at KPMG and Mxenergy.
In July this year Crius was acquired by Vistra Energy for US$378 million (around £309 million).
This morning (29 July) the company revealed it had acquired the majority of fellow challenger supplier Solarplicity’s customers.
Brighton-based Toto also said it will become the preferred grid energy provider of Solarplicity’s community energy scheme.
Meanwhile the rest of the Solarplicity Group will continue as normal.
A spokesperson for Toto Energy said: “We’re delighted to be welcoming Solarplicity’s customers to Toto. We want to assure the customers who are moving to Toto that their energy supply is secure and we are protecting their credit balances.
“Their current tariff and terms and conditions will not change as a result of the move. We will be contacting all the customers who are transferring to Toto to explain and answer any questions.”
A spokesperson for Solarplicity said: “While we’re sad to say goodbye to our retail customers, we know that Toto is an excellent fit. With the completion of this partnership, we can now restructure our business to focus on our core operations.
“First and foremost, we are a renewable technology business striving to fight fuel poverty and make renewable energy available to everyone. We look forward to offering a more focused and dedicated level of service across our renewable business.”