Scottish & Southern Energy Tops League:

UK energy supplier Scottish & Southern Energy ranks highest in satisfying both gas and electricity customers, with RWE AG’s Npower performing the worst, according to a report released today. Industry consultancy JD Power and Associates’ 2007 customer satisfaction report said the main cause for customer dissatisfaction in underperforming companies was the failure to communicate changes in pricing tariffs. Our research shows that communications around the many changes to price tariffs has strongly impacted levels of customer satisfaction, said Caspar Tearle, director of service industries research at JD Power. 

However, the study finds that suppliers who inform their customers of any planned annual service fee adjustments all at once, rather than incrementally throughout the year, fare better in customer satisfaction, even if these service fees are increasing.’ EDF’s UK arm, EDF Energy, and E.ON AG’s Powergen both performed well, with the report focusing on power quality and price value as the key to customer satisfaction. SSE’s strong performance in this report echoes the findings of a customer satisfaction report published yesterday by uSwitch.com in which SSE fared best and Centrica PLC’s British Gas worst. In both surveys, customers were shown to be generally more satisfied than a year ago, with gas and electricity prices falling earlier this year. However, consumer watchdog energywatch says there are still a lot of disgruntled customers - it received 50 pct more complaints between March and August this year than over the same period last year. UK energy regulator Ofgem is encouraging customers to switch suppliers if they are not happy with their current service. Ofgem said that in the first seven months of 2007, 2.8 mln households switched supplier, saving on average £100 per year.