'Dire' customer services cost energy and broadband customers nearly £300m a year (original) (raw)

Which? found that people also lost more than 27 million hours of their lives in a year and slammed the 'sub-standard services' as 'completely unacceptable'

Some customers never even bothered contacting their providers due to previous bad experiences with them

Energy and broadband customers lost an estimated £298m and 27.3 million hours to poor customer service in a year.

In the energy sector, 17% of consumers who had contacted their energy provider said they gave up trying to get their problem resolved due to the issues they experienced with customer service. Almost a third, 32%, said that this left them financially worse off.

On average, they estimated they were £137 worse off as a result. In total, Which? said 1.2 million energy customers were left £166m worse off due to customer service issues forcing them to give up trying to get their issue resolved.

Meanwhile in the broadband sector, 14% of those who contacted their provider said they gave up seeking a resolution due to problems they experienced with the customer service.
And 29% said that this left them financially worse off, on average by £93. Which? estimated that 950,000 consumers were £89m worse off due to giving up contacting their broadband provider.

A small proportion of consumers, 1 to 2%, said they did not even contact their energy or broadband providers due to previous bad experiences with their customer service. This adds an additional £37m to people being worse off due to poor customer service in the energy sector and an additional £6m in the broadband sector, bringing the total estimated loss to poor customer service across both sectors to £298m.

Which?’s survey also looked at how much time customers lost trying to resolve customer service issues. Over a third of people who contacted their energy firm, 35%, and broadband provider, 36%, reported having at least one problem that wasted their time, such as long call waiting times.

Which? said those who experienced time-wasting customer service issues lost almost two hours of their time due to energy customer service problems and one hour 38 minutes of their time due to broadband customer service problems. This means that in total, energy and broadband customers spent an estimated 27.3 million hours in a year on customer service issues - 13.9 million hours for energy customers and 13.4 million hours for broadband customers.

Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: “Our research lays bare the dire state of customer service in the energy and broadband sectors - with nearly £300 million lost to poor service in a single year. It is never OK for firms to provide sub-standard customer service, but in essential sectors providing vital services millions rely on every day such as energy and broadband, it is completely unacceptable."