Scottish Power accept selling ban
05/03/2015
Energy supplier Scottish Power has failed to meet regulator Ofgems customer service targets, leading to a 12 day sales ban.
The firm will be unable to engage in “proactive sales” from the 4th March for 12 days, as they failed to meet Ofgems targets to clear up all outstanding Energy Ombudsman decisions regarding customer complaints.
In November, energy regulator Ofgem advised Scottish Power that they must:
• Cut down the amount of time customers are left on the phone down from three minutes to two minutes
• Reduce the number of overdue bills from 75,000 to 30,000
• Remove a backlog in acting on rulings made by the ombudsman
Scottish Power met the first two targets sufficiently, but failed to meet the last one. A spokesperson from Ofgem said:
"Ofgem and Ombudsman Services uncovered new evidence that showed the company had not fully met its November target. We have continued to work with Ombudsman Services and they found Scottish Power fell short by 30."
Neil Clitheroe, chief executive of Scottish Power Retail & Generation said:
"We have successfully delivered two of the targets,
"In relation to the target of having zero Ombudsman remedies over 28 days, we cleared 2575 cases during November and, at 1 December, the Ombudsman confirmed that we have achieved the zero target.
"However, subsequently it was identified that 30 cases had been closed incorrectly. We sincerely apologise to these customers for these errors.
"The cases were immediately fixed on discovery. In line with our original voluntary commitment and with the agreement of Ofgem, we will now stop outbound selling from 4 March until 15 March."
More than 500 sales advisers will spend the 12 banned days supporting customer service members across the company.
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