E.ON Next has been ordered to pay millions in compensation to customers after UK energy regulator Ofgem penalised the energy supplier for poor customer service.
E.ON will have to pay a total of £5mln, with £4mln of this being shared among customers directly affected by long phone call waiting times.
Over 500,000 customers were potentially affected, Ofgem said, with E.ON taking 18 minutes on average to pick up the phone to customers, prompting 50% to give up on calling.
“The very least that a customer should expect of their supplier is for them to pick up the phone to them in a timely way,” Ofgem enforcement director Cathryn Scott said. “The levels of service that we discovered at E.ON Next during the period of review were unacceptable.”
E.ON will also have to pay £1mln into Ofgem’s Voluntary Redress Fund, aimed at supporting vulnerable customers and other environmental-focused schemes.
Ofgem had ordered all of the UK’s energy suppliers to make improvements to the way they dealt with customer inquiries and complaints, with none found to display “no weakness at all” between October and December last year.
British Gas, EDF, Good Energy, OVO, Scottish Power and Utilita were among 11 companies found to show moderate weaknesses in their customer service wings. Bulb, Ecotricity, Green Energy, Shell and Octopus displayed minor weaknesses.
A survey of 3,000 energy customers in December showed satisfaction with suppliers was at its lowest since records began in 2018.