We put our customers at the heart of what we do and we’re consistently reviewing our approach to provide our customers with the right service and support.
We support the vulnerable and fuel poor, help society to access energy and to use it efficiently by providing customer focused products and services.
Read more about the different ways we’re meeting our customer needs.
Smart metering trials
A Smart Meter is a new type of meter for both electricity and gas supplies. Smart Meters will move us to a new era of automation, eliminating the need for door-to-door meter readings and making estimated bills a thing of the past.
Smart Meters can allow consumers to see how much energy they are using and help them to reduce their carbon footprint. In turn, they will allow energy companies to remotely record customers' gas and electricity use and provide vital information about a customer’s consumption.
E.ON is a partner in the £20 million government-sponsored trial to roll out smart meters to 15,000 homes in the UK from 2007.
Going the extra mile to help
Our Priority Service Register (PSR) has continued to expand. In addition to publicising the service at doctors’ surgeries, medical centres and at various community events, we’ve distributed information leaflets via hospitals and NHS Primary Care Trusts in our region as well as ensuring the information is available at all Citizens Advice Bureau offices across Central England. We’ve continued our working partnerships with various hospital radio stations and talking newspapers for the blind and visually impaired, to promote the PSR including details of how to register, particularly highlighting the need for customers to register if they depend on electricity for medical reasons.
We’ve established a working partnership with Air Products, which provides critical equipment to over 95% of oxygen users in our region. Air Products now provides us with updated customer information on a quarterly basis enabling us to add more than 15,000 additional vulnerable customers to our Priority Service Register.
Excellence in meter reading
Meter reading is one of our key services and our meter readers are often the only face-to-face contact customers have with our company – they are effectively the face of E.ON.
All our meter readers are trained in the skills that will help them to achieve the standard of excellent customer service our customers expect.
This training is based on the practical experiences of meter readers and carried out in a ‘Forum Theatre’, involving role plays based around real situations. The trainees act out a series of scenarios with professional actors to identify what makes a bad or a good customer experience.
Our meter readers have responded very positively and used their experience to suggest their own ideas about what the training should include. Sometimes it’s the small things that make a difference such as the reader providing the customer with a phone number so they can speak to the right person about a particular issue. An additional part of the training centred on potential queries customers may have in relation to their energy bills. The meter readers are fully briefed on the billing process and format of our energy bills to help resolve any customer’s queries on the spot.
What do our customers think? Here are some of their comments:
Received from Prepayment section – Bolton.
I am wanting to pass on some positive feedback from a customer who has just had a visit from Mr Ian Doherty. The customer has had a couple of falls recently and is awaiting a knee operation. Ian contacted the office to explain the situation and advise us that due to health and safety reasons the customer should not be trying to put her key into the prepayment meter, which is located high up the wall. The customer wanted to pass on her thanks and appreciation for Ian’s thoughtfulness and understanding.
John Dyer – meter reader Manchester South.
John was attempting to read the meter in the foyer of some flats when he was approached by a single mother from Poland. She said she had received a bill covering the months from October till July and that the bill was £1,100 which she had already paid. She had since received another bill for £500 which she had to pay and she advised that she was going to have to move as she couldn’t afford to live at property any longer. John thought the bill was in error and rang the call centre number on his useful telephone contacts. He discovered that the opening reading was incorrect and was advised to inform the customer that the bill would be investigated and the customer would be contacted with the resolution within a few days. John gave the call centre and the customer his mobile number in case they required more information. The customer was extremely grateful to John for taking time to sort out the problem.
