Additional support for customers

British Gas

• British Gas has committed to £140 million in additional customer support since the start of the energy crisis – the biggest voluntary support package ever offered to UK energy customers from an energy company.
• The company has a 20-year history of supporting all energy consumers through the British Gas Energy Trust (BGET), an independent charity, separate to, but solely funded by British Gas, that offers help to individuals across the country through energy debt relief grants, emergency small energy grants and a network of more than 40 funded money and energy advice projects. The funded advice centres provide each visitor with an average of £950 added to their yearly income – improving their finances in the longer term. Since its launch, the British Gas Energy Trust has provided consistent, financial help for vulnerable households and remains one of the largest, grant giving energy Trusts in the UK – since 2004 over £175.8 million has been invested to help more than 700,000 people manage their household budgets and energy costs.
• It is also exploring new ways to provide direct targeted support through innovative initiatives. In June, British Gas launched a new ‘You Pay: We Pay’ initiative, the first of its kind in the energy sector, which matches 100% of energy payments made by customers who are struggling and most in need of help. The £15 million scheme is already delivering targeted support to more than 1000 customers that are in or facing fuel poverty, helping them to either not fall into or reduce existing debt. Further take-up is encouraged through direct customer invitations as well as third-party referrals through third-party organisations, which will be launched before the winter. The scheme is part of British Gas’ overall £140 million package.
• British Gas will shortly be mobilising its targeted support package for prepayment customers, issuing proactive and non-repayable support to customers to help them during the upcoming winter period. The package will be similar to the 2023 scheme, in which British Gas provided £10m in targeted support for prepayment customers, including up to £250 of free, no-strings-attached credit provided to prepayment meter customers who are in debt. This fund helped more than 60,000 prepayment customers. In 2022, British Gas doubled the emergency credit available to customers who are on prepayment meters.
• British Gas supports nearly three million customers on its Priority Services Register, which receives around 5,000 calls to a dedicated phone line each week.
• The company continues to help customers manage their debt and give them more time to pay, through payment plans and encouraging early meter readings. British Gas is also exploring further ways of identifying those in need, including launching a new round of community Post Office pop-ups, to raise awareness about the support available to those who are struggling.
• British Gas has invested more than £50 million in customer operations to meet increased demand and announced in November 2023 that the company was boosting its UK call centres by a further 700 roles, all of which are now in place.
• British Gas has introduced prioritisation on its communication channels, making it even easier for those who are in most need to contact the supplier. This is in addition to its 24/7 Emergency Line, and extended voice opening hours which are now 8am – 6pm Monday to Friday and 9am – 2pm Saturdays.

EDF Energy

• EDF has spent £27 million since October 2023 on initiatives to help vulnerable customers, including direct financial assistance to customers in debt.
• EDF works with many partners to ensure broad coverage of the extra support needs of its diverse customer base. This includes its long-established relationship with Plymouth Citizens Advice for in-depth financial support and debt advice, and a partnership with IncomeMax which helps referred customers access an average additional income of £1.7k per annum.
• Since 2003, EDF supported more than 55,000 customers through its Customer Support Fund, which provides energy debt relief for customers experiencing difficulties, as well as replacing old or broken white-good appliances such as washing machines, cookers, and fridge freezers.
• In addition to its continued work with IncomeMax and Citizens Advice, EDF is finalising its package for winter 2024-25 and will provide additional credits, prepayment vouchers, and debt clearance to targeted groups of customers to help them to manage their winter energy costs.
• Last year, it launched a Warmer Winter Shop which provides meaningful and practical support at no cost to the customer, providing items to help people stay warmer in winter and to help reduce energy costs. Alongside energy-saving measures these energy-efficiency bundles include heated throws, rechargeable hot-water bottles, mittens and bodywarmers, and flasks and emergency cooking appliances such as air fryers and slow cookers.

E.ON Next 

• The E.ON Next Energy Fund supports eligible customers by clearing debt from their energy account and provides energy-efficient white goods such as washing machines, fridges, freezers and cookers when urgently needed.
• A provision of £10 million has been allocated to the E.ON Next Energy Fund to help support its customers during the cost-of-living crisis.
• E.ON Next’s energy specialists are specially trained to sensitively help customers in difficult circumstances, including those with complex health and social needs, changes in life circumstances, or problems paying outstanding bills.
• In collaboration with Paylink solutions, the company has implemented a digital tool enabling customers to build their household budget which they can submit to E.ON Next for review, ensuring customers who are struggling can be given more time to pay and an affordable repayment plan agreed to rid them of debt over time. This includes providing additional support credit to prepayment customers.
• E.ON Next has collaborated with Citizens Advice Gateshead to provide a direct-referral service for its customers with complex needs. This service has identified £3 million of additional income for customers in terms of unclaimed benefits.
• Currently over a third of E.ON Next customers are on its Priority Services Register, which ensures they can access the additional support that suits their needs.
• E.ON Next has long-standing and positive relationships with all the main debt advice charities, and collaborates with them in the design and delivery of customer-support solutions.
• E.ON Next is also collaborating with other charities such as Kidney Care UK, Age UK and MacMillan Cancer Support to provide bespoke training to its specialists, and to enable direct referral of its customers into those organisations where they can benefit from a range of services and support.
• All E.ON Next customers are eligible to exclusive offers on energy solutions such as energy-efficient boilers, solar panels and heat pumps. It also refers customers to its Obligation team to access paid-for energy efficiency measures that support their situations.
• Homes for Living is a scheme designed to support mobility, wellbeing and independence, offering free home aids and equipment designed to give more freedom in the home.
• E.ON Next provides 24/7 digital support to its customers via social media channels.
• E.ON Next has a specialised area to support its most vulnerable customers and has a higher proportion of advisors to support its customers. It has invested in bespoke training to support its people when dealing with customers in vulnerable situations.
• E.ON Next has allocated part of its Energy Fund to providing discretionary items for vulnerable customers including heated throws.

Good Energy

• Good Energy provides partial debt relief to some customers, while helping them to move onto any cheaper deals.
• It offers significant flexibility in repayment plan timescales and works with third parties to assist customers with debt management.
• It expanded customer service teams by 20% in one year to provide shorter wait times and improved account support.
• It offers extended support hours so customers can contact them outside working hours.
• It conducts targeted reviews that have improved staff training and customer communications related to customers struggling to pay their bills.
• Good Energy has introduced a dedicated prepayment team and direct phone line to provide fast, specialist assistance.
• It has improved the digital experience for prepayment customers, giving them better insights into their energy use.
• It has significantly increased the emergency credit available to prepayment customers, while determining Additional Support Credits levels on a case-by-case basis.
• Good Energy offers financial incentives for smart meter installation, which can help customers with visibility and budgeting of energy use and provide access to participation in money-saving flexibility services.
• It allows customers to benefit from flexibility services in winter to help them reduce their demand and save money.

Octopus 

• Octopus has created a £30 million Octo Assist financial hardship fund dedicated to helping customers who are unable to afford the cost of living. The fund has already helped more than 80,000 customers.
• It has consistently priced its Standard Variable Tariff (SVT) below the price cap, absorbing £120 million on behalf of customers since the start of the energy crisis.
• It has committed £10 million to providing “standing charge holidays” of up to 6 months. So far, over 35,000 standing charge holidays have been provided to vulnerable customers.
• It is covering Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners missing out this winter, by providing payments of £50, £100 and £200 to those who are no longer eligible.
• This winter (2024/25) it has committed a further £35 million to give Standard Variable Tariff customers a standing charge reduction compared to the price cap.
• It has a scheme to provide free electric blankets for customers, providing 60,000 blankets so far. This on average saves £150 per household in the winter.
• Octopus helps customers save on heating bills through its thermal imaging camera loan scheme, which helps customers in spot and fix draughts and heat leaks. So far, it has loaned cameras to almost 10,000 customers.
• It provides tailored in-person energy-saving advice and account help to reduce bills and support by visiting customers’ homes. So far this has supported more than 300,000 customers.
• It employs experienced social workers to provide expert advice and support to customers who are in challenging situations and/or vulnerable, with benefit-maximisation checks and home visits where necessary to offer any additional support or signposting.
• Octopus enables customers to round up their energy bills to support others, through donations to National Energy Action and Citizens Advice, raising more than £150,000 in 14 months.
• It offers domestic flexibility schemes to help customers save money by changing the way they consume energy e.g. ‘saving sessions’, which enable customers to save money by using less energy during peak periods. This has had more than two million participants, with £10 million in savings paid out so far. Additionally, it has run several ‘power-up’ sessions where customers can access free electricity when there’s extra green energy on the grid.
• Octopus has launched a brand-new industry initiative in 2023 as part of the Warm Home Discount Scheme, in which free solar PV installation and batteries were provided to more than 160 fuel-poor or at-risk households.
• It partnered with ‘Signvideo’ so customers can speak to agents through a British Sign Language interpreter using live video-call technology.
• Octopus offers customers 24/7 emergency support through its team in New Zealand and has also extended email support to 8 am-10 pm, 7 days a week.

OVO  

• OVO is continuing to provide an extensive financial and practical support package to customers who are struggling with the cost of living. This builds on the 75,000 customers supported through its customer support package over the last two winters.
• Customers registered on the Priority Services Register will be automatically routed to their specialist teams for tailored advice and support.
• Direct Debit relief, emergency top-ups and extended repayment plans are available for customers struggling to pay for their energy.
• Extra funds will be allocated to OVO’s Hardship Scheme, which can provide additional support via a range of measures.
• OVO’s highly trained team can support customers if they’re in financial difficulty or struggling for the first time.
• It works with various charities and organisations to provide additional support (such as benefit-entitlement checks or grants) and can directly refer eligible customers.
• It offers a payment support tool that can help customers work out the right payment plan for them. Options include reducing Direct Debits by up to 15% to give the chance to get on top of payments.
• Pay-on-demand customers can create a bespoke plan to spread out their payments. The plan can now last up to 36 months – up from 24 months previously.
• OVO is keeping emergency credit at the increased amount of £15. If customers switch to or are already on prepayment, OVO will check in with them regularly to make sure they can manage.
• It will not disconnect anyone who falls behind this winter. If customers are unable to make their payments, they must get in contact as soon as possible to find out about the tailored support it can offer.
• It has partnered with Experian to offer the industry’s first Open Banking digital tool. Payment Support provides bespoke repayment options, enabling customers looking for support to quickly access a detailed, accurate picture of their affordability and help find a solution tailored personally to suit their current circumstances. Customers will receive a personalised plan based on their financial data to help keep on top of payments.

ScottishPower 

Financial Support

• ScottishPower’s Hardship Fund provides support to customers who are struggling with bills and provided £8 million in funding in 2023.
• It works with partner organisations such as foodbanks, to provide meter credit to prepayment customers in financial difficulty via vouchers which do not need to be repaid. During 2023, ScottishPower provided customers with more than £300k worth of credit through this initiative.
• ScottishPower is working to make it straightforward and fast for customers to request and receive credit advances, to best support prepayment customers in difficult circumstances. Earlier this year, ScottishPower introduced a ‘self-serve’ function in the ScottishPower app, which allows customers to request and receive credit advances without speaking to an agent.

Customer support

• ScottishPower continues to offer a range of options for customers to get in touch including phone, webchat and email options. It assesses the needs of its customers and adjusts its offering to ensure it meets customer needs; this includes extending opening hours over winter to make it easier for customers to get in touch.
• Its Digital Team includes an ‘Accessibility Guild’ dedicated to improving the digital experience for customers with additional accessibility requirements.
• ScottishPower offers intelligent routing of contacts to specialist support teams, to manage customers who are identified as being vulnerable or potentially in need of additional support. This includes Prepayment Off Supply teams, Affordability team and its Extra Care teams – linked to customers with special needs. Customers can share information about additional needs in a number of ways, which include online and over the phone.
• To reduce the risk of prepayment customers going off supply, ScottishPower has extended periods where friendly non-disconnection applies; where this is not technically possible, it offers increased emergency credit.
• ScottishPower offers a dedicated phone line for Citizens Advice to get in touch on behalf of customers. In 2022, it expanded support for other third parties – from national organisations like National Energy Action to smaller, local charities such as South Seeds – by launching a Third- Party Assistance Team.
• Recognising the wider impacts of financial hardship, ScottishPower has included mental-health training for all customer service agents to allow them to respond sensitively to customers who are experiencing such difficulties.
• ScottishPower continues to partner with SignLive, a free service which helps deaf customers to communicate via a British Sign Language interpreter, supporting agents and customers to communicate easily through ‘Video Relay Interpreting’.
• Customers with speech or hearing impairments can contact ScottishPower with the support of RelayUK.
• It also provides interpreters in many different languages to help support customers calling by phone if they do not speak English as their first language.

Information and advice

• ScottishPower’s long-standing and established team of Community Liaison Officers (CLOs) operates across Great Britain and carries out more than 4,000 visits each year to customers in their homes. It offers in-person advice and support on matters relating to energy accounts where this level of support is needed. This service has recently expanded, with CLOs working with Citizens Advice to hold in person advice surgeries.
• It promotes a range of support options for customers, based on their individual needs, including support provided by ScottishPower directly such as energy efficiency advice. Its Energy Insights tool within the ScottishPower app allows smart meter customers to easily track their energy habits, helping to pinpoint changes that could help them reduce their energy usage.
• ScottishPower maintains its strong partnership with StepChange and is working with them to provide specialist debt advice to customers, as well as further developing the training of ScottishPower’s own customer service agents in matters related to dealing with customers in payment difficulty.
• ScottishPower has entered into a three-year partnership with Plain Numbers to ensure its communications are clear, simple and easy to understand. The partnership aims to ensure complex and detailed communications are clear, accessible and can be easily read and understood.

So Energy

• The So Energy Fund provides financial assistance payments and debt relief to eligible customers.
• So Energy has doubled the number of advisors trained specifically to support customers in arrears.
• It offers extended customer Payment Plans based on affordability checks and individual circumstances, adopting a ‘know your customer’ approach with flexibility in mind.
• So Energy provides funds to Citizens Advice’s Energy Advice Programme and Citizens Advice Scotland’s Energy Best Deal. These schemes help communities get specialist energy efficiency advice and income maximisation support.
• It also provides funds to the LEAP scheme, which provides comprehensive support to customers, including energy and debt advice, appliance servicing and home retrofit.
• So Energy has partnered with Mencap to create clear guidance for customers who are new to energy services. These guides are written in plain, easy-to-understand English to assist vulnerable customers with literacy deficits in reading and interpreting their bills, while also highlighting the benefits of using a smart meter.
• Commissioned the Plain English Campaign to review bills and statements in order to make them easier to understand.

Utilita 

• Utilita has provided more than £225 million in customer support since the start of the cost-of-living crisis. This includes £90 million in debt relief alone.
• It employs a dedicated Extra Care Team to support its 380,000 Priority Services Register customers – almost 45% of its customer base.
• If customers are struggling to pay, it will support them to find long-term solutions – from debt advice and benefit-entitlement checks to cost-free energy efficiency steps. Last year alone, Utilita provided £61 million in additional support credit (ASC) – it provided 41% of all ASC industrywide, despite having fewer than 20% of all prepayment customers.
• Utilita is the only energy supplier that does not apply a standing charge when households use no/low amounts of energy, based on principle. Instead, it applies a two-tiered tariff, which has saved its customers more than £20m during the cost-of-living crisis.
• To help prepayment customers stay on supply, Utilita has issued Additional Support Credit – the vast majority being self-served through its app feature, POWER UP – on more than 4.5 million occasions during the cost-of-living crisis.
• Utilita was the first supplier to offer a demand flexibility service to prepayment customers – Power Payback.
• It also partners with Let’s Talk, identifying customers for referral for energy debt relief services and a white-goods scheme where eligible customers can get replacement white goods such as fridges or washing machines.
• Leap is a boiler replacement service that offers eligible customers a replacement boiler, or fully funded repairs. White goods are also offered through this scheme. This feeds into Utilita’s ‘waste less energy’ mantra, because this ultimately leads to customers spending less on their bills. Those eligible are contacted by the supplier.
• Utilita is the only energy supplier with High Street Energy Hubs situated in UK town centres, enabling anyone – not just customers – to have conversations about their energy usage, affordability, and learn about ways to save energy at home.
• Promoting the power of energy efficiency long before other suppliers followed suit, Utilita’s award-winning Energy High 5 behaviour-change campaign has educated millions of households on the free-of-charge ways to save energy at home.
• It funds and works very closely with its official charity partner, Utilita Giving. Vulnerable customers are offered support in the form of grants and tailored expert advice.

Utility Warehouse

• Utility Warehouse has established a dedicated front-line Ability to Pay team since 2019 to offer support and a range of payment options to customers in financial difficulty. This team doubled in size in 2022 to more than 50 advisers, to ensure the right levels of support to meet future increases in demand.
• This is on top of the existing Payment Solutions teams in place to manage customers in need of debt management support; this has increased by more than 20% in the last 12 months.
• In 2021, Utility Warehouse established a dedicated team to work in partnership with Citizens Advice Plymouth to support customers struggling with energy bill payments. They offer budgeting advice and benefits assessments for customers who are in payment difficulty. In the last 12 months, more than 6,000 Utility Warehouse customers have benefited from this service, and it was calculated that their disposable income could be increased by up to £9 million based on reducing unnecessary expenditure and claiming additional benefits.
• This year Utility Warehouse commissioned an increase in the size of the Citizens Advice Plymouth team from 13 to 17 advisors to provide more support to its customers. It plans to increase this by at least a further 50% to cater for the expected higher energy costs this winter and more than double the financial support available.
• It also offers a Customer Support Scheme via Citizens Advice Plymouth, where those seen to be in fuel poverty can have debt written off to help get them back on track.
• In addition, Utility Warehouse offers financial assistance, also via Citizens Advice Plymouth, so that customers about to go into debt or those who run out of credit on their prepayment meter can receive a payment of up to £150 to alleviate their situation.
• It has also invested in third-party data to help identify potentially vulnerable customers and reach out to prepayment customers who may have been experiencing hardship to advise them of the support available.
• A hardship fund was introduced in 2023 and doubled the financial support available to help customers via Citizens Advice Plymouth, and to recruit additional Citizens Advice Plymouth staff dedicated to Utility Warehouse customers. It also extended help to multi-service customers. Over the financial year 2024 it distributed more than £550,000 from the fund to support vulnerable customers.
• Its Customer Support Scheme and hardship fund allow for debt write-off up to £1,000 or £2,000, depending on individual circumstances. Advisers at Citizens Advice Plymouth determine who qualifies for additional support.
• Utility Warehouse has a range of customer comms planned to help people prepare for winter 2024. This will include advice and tips on boiler care, special comms for prepayment customers and those who are most vulnerable, and planned comms during cold snaps to ensure customers stay on supply and are aware of what help is available.
• It has developed smart meter guides for customers that demonstrate various actions such as topping up or manual meter reading (because improper use of smart meter features can lead to billing issues or service disruptions).