Energy provider blames "attractive low prices" for record customer complaints

BIRMINGHAM-BASED energy provider Extra Energy has said it has “invested heavily” in customer service after it came bottom of a Citizens Advice complaints league table.

Its performance – of 1,682 complaints per 100,000 customers – was the worst ratio recorded in the five years the quarterly table has been compiled. It was also poorer than the next two worst energy suppliers, Npower and Co-operative Energy, put together.

Extra Energy had received 1,554 complaints per 100,000 customers in the previous quarter, which also ranked it last of the 20 energy firms which supply more than 50,000 domestic customers.

The most recent set of published accounts for the company, for 2014, showed a £15.7m loss while its website boasts of “running a highly efficient and lean organisation” .

In a glib response, Ben Jones, managing director of operations at Extra Energy, said: “We failed to anticipate just how attractive our low prices would be to householders and unfortunately we didn’t put customer service resource in place quickly enough. Thankfully these problems are largely a thing of the past.”

Extra Energy said it recruited 150 customer service staff during a six month period to March and is adding a further 40 people.

Mr Jones said complaints were down by one-third in April compared with the previous three months – although this improvement would still see the comapny bottom of the 20 suppliers – and they “expect to see a steady improvement throughout the remainder of Q2 and into Q3”.

Extra Energy had a complaint rate nearly 60 times higher than best performer SSE, which had 28 complaints per 100,000 customers.

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, added: “Energy consumers continue to face a gamble when it comes to good customer service.

“It should be every consumer’s right to receive a high quality service from their supplier and standards must be improved across the board.”