At SSE we put customers at the heart of everything we do. We power more than five million homes and businesses in the UK and we want all our customers to be happy with the service we provide.
However, sometimes things can go wrong and when they do we want to put them right quickly. For us, one complaint is always one complaint too many and we work to constantly improve and deliver the service our customers deserve. This is why we have been voted number one for customer service by uSwitch eight years in a row. It is also why the Citizens Advice Energy Complaints Performance Report has also consistently named SSE as the best performing of the major energy suppliers when it comes to handling customer complaints.
Today, Ofgem published its own report detailing how energy companies handle customer complaints. SSE was the only major supplier to maintain its level of service and show a reduction in the number of dissatisfied customers over the last two years. Our customers were also more positive than other suppliers' both big and small, in terms of their overall satisfaction in how we handle complaints and they were more likely to agree than disagree that they had been treated fairly.
However, whilst we are pleased our standards have not slipped, it’s important that we continue to improve and get it right first time.
We don’t want any customer being unhappy with the service we provide. We pride ourselves on our customer service - so much so that we were the first major energy supplier to implement a customer service money-back guarantee to give our customers peace of mind that if our standards were not met, they would receive £20. We also set out our high standards of service in our Customer Charter to clearly state our commitment to customers.
However, we know that there may be occasions when a customer is not entirely happy with the service we have provided, and when this happens, we’re disappointed and want to get their complaint resolved as quickly as possible.
Resolving at the first point of contact
We empower every single one of our 4,000 UK based customer service employees to put things right at the very first point of contact. We want all complaints to be resolved on the spot. If this is not possible, we aim to resolve it by the end of the next working day. Our latest figures show we’ve been resolving 85 percent, up from 80 per cent, of complaints by the end of the next working day.
Our customer service team also log every single expression of dissatisfaction, no matter how small. This helps us capture problems at the earliest stage, help us resolve it as quickly as possible and constantly improve our service. It also reduces the need for customers to go elsewhere such as the Ombudsman to get their problem resolved.
A straight-forward 3-step complaint procedure
We have a simple 3-step complaint procedure which outlines clearly how to go about making a complaint to us, the process and commitments we make to helping resolve it. It also outlines our contact details for both phone and email, including an email for SSE’s Head of Customer Service. You can take a look at this here.
Listening to our customers
Above everything else, it’s essential we listen to our customers to ensure we can pick up on any issues early on and deliver the service they deserve. We do this through our customer service staff who talk to customers day in, day out. We’re also in the third year of our Customer Forums, providing another outlet for customers to have a say on the improvements we can make. And last month, SSE published its second Treating Customers Fairly statement, an important document that sets out the ways we meet Ofgem’s Standards of Conduct. It includes an email for customers to contact me about ways we can improve our service.
Ofgem's survey highlights that more still needs to be done. And although SSE was the best performing of the other suppliers, both big and small, we want to get better. We’ll be reviewing the results of the survey closely and will be responding directly to Ofgem on the issues raised and further work we’ll do in this area to ensure our customers only receive the very best customer service.