Scottish Power, EDF and British Gas have been identified as the lowest-performing energy suppliers in Which?’s annual customer satisfaction rankings.
All three companies recorded overall scores below 60% and were awarded just two stars in the consumer organisation’s customer survey.
Scottish Power ranked last overall with a score of 56%, receiving the weakest results of any supplier for its handling of customer complaints. EDF placed second from bottom with an overall score of 58%, with Which? citing limited monitoring hours for its telephone and email customer service channels as a key factor. British Gas followed closely behind with a score of 59%. While the supplier was found to offer a reasonable level of support to customers in vulnerable situations, it performed poorly in complaint resolution and customer switching.
At the top of the rankings, E (Gas and Electricity) achieved the highest overall score of 79%. The supplier received four stars for customer service, ease of contact and clarity of billing, with 86% of customers saying they would recommend the company.
Octopus Energy ranked second with a score of 74%, followed by 100Green and Sainsbury’s Energy, which achieved scores of 72% and 71% respectively. Co-op Energy and Outfox Energy matched Sainsbury’s Energy’s overall score but failed to achieve three stars or more across all customer survey categories.
The findings are based on a survey of nearly 12,000 energy customers conducted in September and October, alongside an in-depth assessment of the internal practices and policies of 17 energy suppliers.
Emily Seymour, Energy Editor at Which?, said the research showed that while several providers were delivering high standards of service, some of the UK’s largest suppliers were failing to meet customer expectations.
“With fixed tariffs now consistently cheaper than the energy price cap, customers should not feel compelled to accept poor value or inadequate service,” she said. “Suppliers that fail to improve risk losing customers to competitors offering better service and pricing.”
In response, a spokesperson for Centrica, the owner of British Gas, said the company’s investment in customer service was delivering improvements, noting that complaints had fallen by more than 20% year-on-year for the past two years. The company also highlighted extended call centre hours and the introduction of a dedicated support line for vulnerable customers.
EDF said it acknowledged the findings and remained committed to improving customer service, while also pointing to strong feedback elsewhere, including a Trustpilot rating of 4.8 based on more than 154,000 customer reviews.
Scottish Power said the Citizens Advice customer service scorecard provided a more robust and transparent assessment of supplier performance and claimed it reflected sustained improvements following significant investment in its services.
