Energy Switch Guarantee: Good practice guide 2024-25

In 2025, the Expert Panel comprised the Chair of the Guarantee, Matt Cole, Head of Fuel Bank Foundation, representatives from the UK’s consumer advocacy groups, and Energy UK.

Areas of particular focus for the panel were how signatories:

• Use smart metering data to enhance the customer’s experience of the end-to-end switching process.
• Identify customer issues and use them to drive wider improvements that benefit customers.

As a result of these hearings, the ESG has produced a good practice guide, highlighting areas where signatories go beyond what is expected of them and suggesting improvements that the industry could make to drive up standards across the sector.

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Introduction

I’m proud to present the 2024-25 good practice guide from the Energy Switch Guarantee.

The Energy Switch Guarantee’s purpose is simple and straightforward. The energy market of yesteryear was at times confusing, which led to some customers being unsure about how to best access the benefits of other tariffs from a variety of energy suppliers. Others had concerns about how the switching process operated and the consumer protections that were in place.

The Guarantee – or the ESG for short – remedies these. Supplier members of the ESG must meet a number of stretching targets and commitments that build upon Ofgem’s regulatory expectations. Supplier performance is measured and tracked by the ESG team to ensure that our values of switching tariffs or suppliers is ‘Speedy, Simple and Safe’. And a robust governance process ensures that any issues are addressed and nipped in the bud as priority.

The ESG now has 10 members representing 95% of the market in terms of household customers supplied. This is an increase from around 80% in 2021, with all committed to a continued ratcheting up of commitments and targets to deliver better outcomes for customers., with all committed to a continued ratcheting up of commitments and targets to deliver better outcomes for customers.

As independent chair of the ESG, I am keen that the ESG continues to evolve to reflect the changing energy market and different customer expectations about what is good, and what could be great. Because for the market to work to its optimum it’s essential that customers – all customers – feel able to access tariffs that suit their precise needs, and that the support and service they receive from the supplier is straightforward, logical and fair.

This good practice guide is part of this. Annually two areas of interest for the ESG are examined in detail to identify opportunities for the industry to consider and potentially adopt. This year our focus was on how smart metering data is used to enhance the customer’s experience of the end-to-end switching process, and how customer issues are identified and used to drive wider improvements that benefit customers. I was joined by colleagues from Citizens Advice England and Wales, Consumer Scotland and Energy UK who supported the review of supplier performance at deep-dive sessions, where we drilled into the detail of individual supplier performance.

Our reflections were clear: we saw some good practice where ESG supplier members were committed to deliver better outcomes for customers, and many examples of where suppliers were going beyond Ofgem’s regulatory baseline. We also saw opportunities where suppliers could learn from each other, and this good practice guide is shared to allow suppliers to further enhance the experiences people have switching tariff or supplier in the GB energy market.

Matthew Cole

Chair, Energy Switch Guarantee

Learn more about the ESG and review previous good practice guides

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How ESG members make best use of smart data to deliver ESG principles of ‘speedy, simple and safe’

The Energy Switch Guarantee was launched at a time when smart meter penetration was around 5%. Today around 68% of domestic energy customers have a smart meter, and the focus of this deep dive was to identify how supplier performance and practice has evolved to ensure that the benefits from smart metering and smart meter data are both being optimised to mitigate customer detriment and enhance customer outcomes.

“Start accurate, stay accurate”

We saw a clear focus from all supplier-members on ensuring new customers join their company with strong foundations. One member explained how they view the switching experience as ‘a key opportunity to provide a great first (or last) impression’. All members of the ESG explained that they prioritise their operational activity and processes to ensure that the first bill or statement that the customer receives is correct.

Smart meter data is an enabler to this: the depth and breadth of information that can be accessed or utilised is significant compared to customers who join a supplier with a traditional meter, and suppliers are keen to benefit from this.

There was recognition that better onboarding leads to an overall improved customer experience, although each member had individual strategies that they develop. For example, on the breadth and depth of the foundations they establish and the data they access and use to achieve this.

For example, some members prioritised several key events post-acquisition, where there is a higher risk of material customer detriment, which can be heightened by data inconsistency and error. This included focusing on the quality and timeliness of data for these events, and how it is used, over routine billing activity. Key events include move out, change of tariff, or move to another supplier. This internal assessment of data hierarchy and prioritisation of smart data items against customer impact may be something that suppliers may wish to consider further.

All members recognised that technical constraints faced by smart metering means that, at times, some smart meters may not work correctly. For example, a smart meter may be capturing energy consumed at the customer’s home, but this information is not being communicated to the supplier. There was a real and genuine appreciation of the frustration that this causes customers, in particular because of the removal or non-delivery of functionality that customers value, such as being able to check consumption patterns or identify potential savings.

Several different approaches are taken by members to mitigate or address this, and as such, the customer experience is not uniform across ESG members. Some detailed how they proactively contact a customer’s smart meter pre-acquisition, to ensure that they can support the tariff that the customer is signing up for. This enables early identification of any issues and allows a potentially speedier resolution.

“Get the meter working”

All members identified how they prioritise correcting and fixing any faulty smart meters or smart connectivity issues. However, there were differing approaches, with some proactively identifying errors and driving resolution of them, and some waiting for customer contact before any action is taken. The panel notes that a proactive approach leads to a better customer experience, as this avoids starting from a position of customer disappointment or frustration, and mitigates any detrimental impact on the customer.

Some members recognised that marketing a wide variety of smart-only tariffs can be used to drive interest in smart metering and to encourage smart adoption. However, there was also appreciation of the challenge that not all customers may be able to access smart metering at present, and therefore suppliers did not want to see people left behind.

For example, at least three members detailed how they purposefully do not restrict tariff choices made available to their customers if an installed smart meter is inoperable, or uncontactable. Other members talked about ensuring the customer does not experience any detriment from a non-functioning smart meter. As this was not universal across all members, this may be an area to consider revisiting, to enhance supplier practice and customer experience.

Some members detailed how smart metering and smart data specifically was being used to drive the development of new propositions to provide improved choices to customers. For instance, they highlighted enabling future-dated internal tariff changes rather than automatically changing tariffs on the date of the initial request from the customer.

Some suppliers also recognised the potential to use smart meter data to provide proactive support to vulnerable consumers, such as those at risk of self-disconnection, or detect tampering that could potentially be a health and safety issue.Using smart data to improve the attractiveness of retail products, and improve consumer protections, can be materially advantageous for a customer and should be considered by all suppliers.

Members also detailed how smart data has enabled increased efficiency of some – for instance producing the final bill when a customer moves to another supplier. In part, this has been driven by the evolutionary change introduced through the ESG to better the six-week regulatory expectation. mart meter health and operability is seen as essential, and evolution in this space could lead to a step change in customer experience. This will be examined further by the ESG in 2024.

Always striving to deliver better… How potential issues are identified, addressed and used to drive wider process improvements by ESG members

It was clear from the deep-dive panel hearings that continual improvement was seen as standard for all ESG members, although different approaches have been taken.

All members highlighted that having a Board member or senior leader responsible for customer outcomes – as required of all ESG members – helped increase focus on this subject.

“Contact seen as failure”

For one member, driven by its vision and target operating model, its view was that a customer needing to speak to a customer service agent indicated an issue with its online service delivery proposition, and an opportunity to enhance their customer experience. Although not a universal sentiment by members, it was interesting to see how this zero-tolerance approach had been used to identify and drive incremental change throughout the organisation. For instance, it enabled customers to schedule their own metering appointments online (while still retaining the ability to schedule appointments via phone call, to maintain inclusion).

The standard approach adopted by most ESG members was a routine cycle where performance against key targets and service levels was reviewed frequently – sometimes daily – with rapid escalation upwards where service was failing. Members detailed the importance of clear accountability and responsibility for processes and outcomes, particularly where having a wide range of resolution options could enable a better customer experience.

For example, one member commented that a ‘very constrained number of options to offer to the customer leads to a very constrained customer experience.’ It used this sentiment to empower its teams to do what they felt was most appropriate for the customer they were assisting – albeit with appropriate governance, or ‘stages and gates’ to ensure consistency in delivery.

Further, some members detailed the additional focus they afforded to understanding the root cause and drivers of any complaint. They noted this provides additional insight, enabling processes to be enhanced. Regular trend analysis was a common approach across members, and frameworks to escalate repeat issues. Additionally, some members ask customers, including those who have complained, to provide lived experience suggestions and input into process redesign. This may be something for other suppliers to consider.

“Track from a customer outcomes perspective, then drill back”

All members highlighted the desire to avoid hand offs between teams – and therefore the importance of training and upskilling – while some also recognised that at times, specialist skills are required due to the potential complexity and risk of customer harm. Examples included managing prepayment self-disconnection, responding to acute customer vulnerability or debt, or completing complex smart meter reconfiguration activity (noting, however, that some members were delivering these activities within BAU service teams).

It may be beneficial for suppliers to routinely assure themselves that any split between activities delivered by generalist rather than specialist teams is delivering optimal outcomes for customers. We also saw evidence that a focus on the customer journey across multiple touchpoints can deliver enhanced outcomes and recommend that more broadly, suppliers consider embedding this into their processes.

With respect to driving incremental change to enhance the customer experience, some members raised the benefits of multi-functional teams working together to resolve priority process issues using an agile project methodology, embedding operational, commercial, service and technical capabilities into a single unit. Other members highlighted the importance of limiting process redesign within an operational team where it is a straightforward issue unlikely to impact other areas, and that any change that cuts across multiple areas are transferred to specialists to manage and drive.

Both the use of multi-functional teams and limiting transfers to specific operational teams enabled a rapid prioritisation of issues that was impactful in delivering an improved customer experience. However, it may also be beneficial for suppliers to ensure that where the individual approach is adopted, that this delivers optimal outcomes for customers more widely. At the same time, when determining if multi-functional teams are the right approach, value versus mitigations needs to be well considered.