Unhappy with our service
We’re committed to providing excellent service.
If you’re unhappy with our service, we want to hear from you so that we can understand where things went wrong and what we can do to put things right as quickly as possible.
Please be polite to our colleagues
We understand that complaints can be unsettling and customers who contact us may be angry or upset. We will always do our best to help.
We also have a duty of care to our employees and ask that users of our service are polite to our colleagues. We will not tolerate abuse of our people.
All consumers are encouraged to read our Working Together page before registering their dispute.
What is a complaint about our service?
A service complaint is when you’re unhappy with the service we’ve provided to you. This could include:
- The way we handled your call
- We didn't meet your communication needs
- We caused unnecessary delays
- We didn’t keep you updated or respond to you within our timescales
What isn’t considered a complaint about our service?
There are a few things that aren’t covered under our service complaint policy. These include complaints about:
- The outcome of our investigation into your complaint about an energy supplier. This includes the weighting we've placed on evidence and the decision we've reached
- Our dispute resolution process
- Our decision not to accept your dispute against your energy supplier
- The failure of the energy supplier to implement the remedy
- Any service failures that happened more than 6 months ago.
Whilst we can’t accept a complaint about our service relating to these, should you have concerns about any of the above issues, you should contact your Dispute Resolution Executive (DRE).
You can find your DRE’s contact details at the top right-hand side of your case on the portal, or contained within any other correspondence sent from your DRE.
Alternatively, you can reach out through our main contact channels and they’ll ensure your DRE is made aware of your request.
What to expect when you complain about our service
We take service complaints seriously and use your feedback to make meaningful improvements.
Here's what you can expect from us:
- We’ll listen
- We’ll acknowledge and apologise where things have gone wrong
- We’ll explain what happened and why
- We’ll set out what we’re doing to put it right
Our aim is to build a service you can trust - your experience helps us get there.
Your feedback helps us identify gaps or issues in our processes so we can improve the service for all users. While we don’t offer goodwill awards, we focus on learning and improving.
How to make a complaint about our service
Stage 1
If you're not happy with the service you’ve received, the quickest way to resolve it is to contact your DRE, as they know your case and they're best placed to address any queries or concerns you have. They should be able to resolve the issue for you.
Alternatively, you can raise a complaint using our online form.
We aim to resolve complaints quickly, but please be aware that some issues may take time. If the DRE can’t resolve your complaint, here's what to do:
Stage 2
You can ask for your complaints to be reviewed by their Coach. The Coach will contact you and work with you to find a solution. If the Coach isn’t able to resolve your service complaint, they‘ll issue our final response.
In some cases, the nature of complaints raised may mean it’s best for us to wait until your dispute with your supplier has been concluded before we carry out our own review. This decision would only be made to ensure we can support you in the most effective way.
Stage 3
If you remain unhappy with the final response, you can refer your complaint to the Independent Assessor. To begin this process, please let us know and we’ll provide you with a referral letter. The role of the Independent Assessor is to look at how we’ve handled your customer service complaint.
The Independent Assessor will not:
- Review the outcome of our investigation into your original dispute
- Overturn the outcome of our investigation
- Review our decision not to accept your dispute against your energy supplier
We understand that you may not always agree with the outcome of your dispute. However, disagreements with our decision aren't part of our service complaints process and can't be reviewed by the Independent Assessor.
If you disagree with the decision we've reached about your dispute with your supplier, you may have the right to challenge the decision via an appeal within 14 days of your original decision being issued. If you remain unhappy with the final decision reached, the final point of escalation is a Coach.
If you still disagree with the final decision reached, you can choose to decline our decision and take the matter further by pursuing it outside of our service, for example, through the courts.
Complaints to the Executive Team and Board
While our Executive Team and Board members have a strong interest in the service we provide, they aren’t directly involved in our complaints process. As such, any complaints addressed to them will be handled in accordance with our “Unhappy with Our Service” process to ensure a consistent and fair approach.
Repeat Complaints
We appreciate that consumers may have cause to complain about our service on more than one occasion, particularly where we have a continuing relationship. We’ll always ensure that we consider service complaints fairly.
However, there may be occasions when the number or nature of complaints raised by a particular consumer affects our ability to deal with that complaint, or with the complaints of other consumers. We may restrict consumers from using our “Unhappy with Our Service” process in exceptional cases.
For further information please see Our Process page.
Ready to raise your dispute with us?