British Gas customer services

[Arrowfoot]

old story of companies taking existing customers for granted I'm afraid but fawning over new ones.
Before joining a company/supplier of anything I often used to phone the customer helpline to see how the responsiveness/call pick up varied from the new customer "step right this way" number.
From above it seems that BG can't even manage to get its fawning sorted.

Must have hit the customer target quite early.

I once needed to sort an old running dispute and do a much needed broadband upgrade. I called the upgrade line, I got the full red carpet treatment similar to how Tory's handle donors. I even had a follow-up on the settled dispute. I did not even need to offer a Greek holiday home for a week.

 

[Joffey]

Interesting - do you have a link for this - can you summarise why he said to stay on a variable rate?

I don't have a specific link but if you go on his website (https://www.moneysavingexpert.com) the advise is on there. He's been saying it on every programme he's appeared on. I think it's because the fixed prices are so high you are better off taking the chance that the capped variable rates will drop before they get to that level. Plus you are signing in for 2 years on a really high rate and maybe have to pay penalties to switch if prices drop.

 

[Joffey]

I never could understand how call centres are great at handling at sales and upgrades but suck at general queries. Its like they are not happy that you called and not aware you are paying for their services.

Poor customer service always makes me leave a company. I'm sure that there are thousands like me too but there must be millions who just put up with it strangely.

I'd rather pay a premium for better customer service.

 

[CharlesF]

can you say more?
Briefly.

BG came to install Smart Meters. Put the meters in and promised to return with Monitor and to get that part up and running. Despite many phone calls, all the promised visits never happened. In the end I moved to Octopus Energy.

I explained about BG and the meters. While I was on the line, Octopus checked and said that the Electricity Meter was commissioned but the Gas Meter was not connected!!!!

Two weeks later (this Wednesday); their engineer arrived, fixed the Gas Meter and left a Monitor that will be active next week.

Take a bow Octopus Energy!

 

[byegad]

I've been with British Gas since 2016. Every quarter they ask me to read my meters and I then enter them on their app, which works well for me.
I 'think' they've sent out a meter reader person a couple of times since we joined, but we've never seen them despite being retired and often home.
TBH the app is very good.

 

[Blue Hills]

I've been with British Gas since 2016. Every quarter they ask me to read my meters and I then enter them on their app, which works well for me.
I 'think' they've sent out a meter reader person a couple of times since we joined, but we've never seen them despite being retired and often home.
TBH the app is very good.

It is impossible to enter a meter reading on their account web page. At least once you have a smart meter. A smart meter which in my mum's case has been busT for two and a half years, and which they have not managed to fix. And have given hours of runaround in trying to sort a fix.
My mum does not use apps.
And I wouldn't trust a bg app after my appalling experience.

 

[byegad]

It is impossible to enter a meter reading on their account web page. At least once you have a smart meter. A smart meter which in my mum's case has been busT for two and a half years, and which they have not managed to fix. And have given hours of runaround in trying to sort a fix.
My mum does not use apps.
And I wouldn't trust a bg app after my appalling experience.

One reason why I've been firmly refusing Smart meters for over 10 yrs.
The other reason is the first, and second generation of them are not up to snuff.

 

[tony111]

Due to past experience I suggest this conversation is moved to the any good jokes thread.

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

Someone (might be on the retirement section) had a RECENT service by British Gas. The boiler packed in completely so he phoned and was basically told "no chance....at least one week".

This was me. Woke up on Sunday to find the boiler completely dead, no lights or anything. So no heating and no hot water. That’s ok we thought, we are covered by British Gas Homecare. After much digging we found an out of hours number to ring only to be told that the earliest they could attend would be Friday, ie. yesterday.
The good news is that they did indeed visit yesterday, two very professionally mannered engineers, they spent a good thirty minutes running tests and located the problem in the pump. They were able to fix it there and then and then continued running tests for the next 20 minutes to make sure. It worked fine for the rest of the day and touch wood is working fine this morning.
The delay in attending was a shock but the professionalism of their visit couldn’t be faulted. We won’t be getting a bill for their work because it was all covered under the Homecare contract, for which we pay £23 a month.
During the week I browsed Trustpilot for alternatives and judging from the one star reviews none of them looked much better.

 

[Blue Hills]

One reason why I've been firmly refusing Smart meters for over 10 yrs.
The other reason is the first, and second generation of them are not up to snuff.

BG seem to have given up on mum's.
They did arrange a visit (or I did) but after my checking I have not a lot of confidence that the idiots will actually turn up when they said they would.
Several of the many useless BG call centre folk I called trotted out what was obviously a scripted line saying "it's a global issue" which I took to be corporate speak for "fark knows what's wrong with the things - we might get around to figuring out what the problem is next century".
In my book once you get a smart meter you lose control - at least with the likes of british gas.