British Gas contact centre staff are facing a deluge of aggressive customer complaints, according to the company’s boss, who concedes the energy sector is facing a crisis of trust.
Managing director Phil Bentley has revealed that customers struggling to pay gas and electricity bills are taking out their frustrations on his call centre staff and workers on the
road.
In a leaked email to staff, Bentley said: “We have seen a groundswell of anti-British Gas comments, with increasingly aggressive tones. All our call centres are under extreme pressure from more angry customers struggling to pay bills.”
In the same email, which was supposed to boost staff morale, Bentley also admitted that British Gas has lost its customers’ trust.
He added: “There is no doubt in my mind that the energy industry is facing a crisis – a crisis of affordability; a crisis of investor confidence; a crisis of relentless media criticism – in short, a crisis of trust.”
Last week, it was revealed that the big six energy companies received 4 million complaints last year, mostly concerning mistakes on bills and inaccurate meter readings.
The research, by Which?, showed that nine in ten customers who were unhappy with the way their complaint was dealt with did not take it to the energy ombudsman.
Richard Lloyd, Which? executive director, said: “Ofgem should publish the truth about the full level of complaints in this essential service. Energy suppliers should be held publicly accountable, on a regular basis, for putting right the problems their customers are reporting.”
