N(o)Power ! (NPower)

Member Name: webbk

Product:	NPower
Date:	04/04/02 (263 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Poor customer service staff, Poor workflow internally in resolving problems, Lack of communication

The title I have awarded, for me, sums these people up in a nutshell. Myself and my wife were driven towards this "one household supplier" concept which seems de rigeur, back in September of last year.

It all seemed simple enough. Ring them up, pass on the details of your address, whilst on the phone dig out the old bills for the cust/ meter reference number, and Bobs your Auntie's live in lover , right ?!

WRONG !

We live in a large victorian house. Within this house are 4 flats with 4 meters for Electric and 4 meters for Gas.

We gave them the exact meter reference numbers for Electic and Gas as stated on our Electric and British Gas Bills.

Roll forward a quarter and we notice we get a British Gas bill for a hundred quid. We ring them and inform them that we have been paying NPower 50 quid a month since September so there must be some mistake.

Nope, British Gas had no instruction whatsoever to curtail our gas supply with them.

Over the next 4 weeks we made 12 phone calls to NPower with our correct Gas meter reference number. Every single time we asked the customer service rep what number they had for us , it was the wrong one. The number they had for some reason was for a man in the basement who had never contacted NPower ! How they got this we will never know because we did not know it beforehand and nobody else in the house had rung them. Even more frustrating, was the fact that every time we rang them to inform them of the correct one, THEY STILL DID NOT AMEND THEIR RECORDS !!

I ask, how complicated can life get ?!!
We are now in April, and they still have not changed our details. We have decided to cut our losses and move to another supplier who I can whole heartedly rcommend, called Servista.

They are cheaper, they communicate daily during the transgression period and have so far been a superb supplier in terms of lack of headaches and frustration.

W
e now face the battle of getting back the money NPower owe us as we have an enormous credit on our bill.

Basically, we have been paying two gas suppliers for seven months, only getting supply from the old one, and not benefiting from any savings attributed to having both on one supplier.

Why ? Because 10 or more people could not make a data entry change to our customer records and actually see a customer query through from start to finish.

If there is one thing I can't stand is when people on the phone say "Well, all I can do sir is apologise". This is a cheap throw away comment, which is totally inaccurate.

It is most certainly not the only thing they could do. It would be just as easy to improve their data flow/ processing/ systems or staff just so that customers do not need to spend ages waiting in a call queue to complain over and over again.

For me, if an organsiation cannot deliver and troubleshoot the simple things, ie 'their bread and butter' stuff then people will not stand for it. There are enough things to worry about in life without having to hang on the phone for ages just to resolve a household utility bill problem. Life is too short !

I will write an up date on what the turn around was like with our refund !

Another tip you guys might like to make use of is to check out the Household Utility Bills piece on Yahoo UK Finance. You can actually type in your postcode, the sum total of your last two or three bills for gas and leccy and phone and then it will query and deliver you the results of the cheapest suppliers in your area AND how much you will save. We are set to save around 400 GBP with Servista per year.

Hurrah !

Summary: