Energy companies should stop viewing vulnerable customers as expensive, Ofgem’s head of consumer policy has said.
Meghna Tewari described this catch-all view as a “cop-out” but one that remained sadly prevalent across the sector.
Speaking at Utility Week’s Consumer Vulnerability Conference, Tewari said there was a clear business case for suppliers to promote the accessibility of their service.
The conference also heard from Lord Larry Whitty, the chair of the Commission for Customers in Vulnerable Circumstances (CCVC). He called for a tighter regulatory framework around supporting those most in need, however he stressed the industry needed to set standards above and beyond that structure.
He also talked about the need to ensure price comparison websites were set up to deal with vulnerable consumers and suggested a kitemark system to alert users to websites that could cater for particular complex needs.
Both the CCVC and Ofgem have published reports within the past two months assessing the industry’s ability to serve vulnerable consumers.
The regulator’s includes a use-it-or-lose-it £30 million innovation fund specifically targeted at this issue. Tewari also said Ofgem was developing an analytical framework of customer archetypes to ensure companies understood a broad range of needs.
However, she said the most fundamental step necessary to start the process was to stop seeing vulnerable customers as a high-cost issue.
“I think there is a business case for serving certain categories of vulnerable customers”, she said.
“Scope, for example, say consumers who are disabled are more likely to switch to a provider with better accessibility. There are opportunities out there.
“Looking at vulnerable customers as some sort of homogenous group that is always high cost to serve is quite an outdated way of looking at it. It’s a bit of a cop out.”
Lord Whitty, meanwhile, told the conference that the commission’s report had highlighted good and bad practice in fairly equal measure, and this was not just restricted to the larger players in the market.
He said: “We concluded we needed rising standards. That would require a stronger regulatory regime and licensing conditions and, more importantly perhaps, one which is properly managed and enforced by Ofgem.
“But, we also think the industry itself needs to set standards beyond and above the regulatory structure.
“Energy UK’s plans to pull together a kind of code of conduct for vulnerable customers seems to me to be sensible.”
In terms of specific areas of focus for the industry to improve its approach, Lord Whitty said companies needed to be much more flexible in terms of the range of communication options open to customers.
He added: “A lot of people are not able to deal with the way bills are presented and the way their energy bills are calculated so they need an interface with the company that is more sophisticated than at present.
“Staff training is key to get to that stage, plus the relationship between companies and support groups needs to be closer.”