Blog
Localised Energy Bills – How do they differ to the Price Cap?
We’re all familiar with the headline figure of the Energy Price Cap. Set most recently at £1,834 (following Ofgem's reduction in TDCV's), the number serves the useful purpose of providing an estimated average bill for customers. But rarely is there a discussion about the reality of this figure, and how it can’t possibly reflect the actual bills faced by households across the UK. In short, this is far from the case.
Winter complaints are coming – and this year, the pressure feels different
Lower temperatures, increased energy usage, and more customer complaints. Suppliers face this challenge during any winter, but this year, there's greater pressure at play. Vulnerability and customer support will remain top of the agenda, following last month's House of Commons Committee report, alongside the ongoing focus on Customer Standards by Ofgem.
Service vs Sales – A dilemma for suppliers as the market reopens
With the prospect of a switching resurgence on the horizon, it will be interesting to see whether suppliers decide to chase the volume of new customers, or seek to prioritise customer retention. In short, many are likely to face a ‘Service vs Sales’ dilemma – bringing a degree of unpredictability to the market.
Working at BFY - Mental Wellbeing Month
This year, we decided to run our first Mental Wellbeing Month at BFY, which came to a close earlier this week for World Mental Health Day. It’s been a hugely successful period, filled with initiatives and activities to help our team make the conscious effort to think about their mental health and wellbeing.
Customer indebtedness is set to worsen this winter
Customer indebtedness is growing at an unsustainable rate. And it’s projected to get worse as we head into winter. Analysis from our Market Insights supports this, highlighting three key points, which we’ve explored further in this blog.
The Energy Price Cap – A tragedy in four acts
The Energy Price Cap was introduced by Ofgem back in 2019, to ensure “that prices for people on default energy tariffs are fair and that they reflect the cost of energy". If the goal was to prevent loyalty premiums (which was the original stated intention), then we’d argue that a relative price cap would have been better.
An update on B2B Credit Risk
Business deaths have begun to decline from a peak position in late 2021 and early 2022 – the latent effect of the pandemic on business viability has potentially now passed. However, businesses continue to operate in challenging circumstances with economic pressures weighing heavily.
Closing the Service Gap - Developing Great Conversations
Developing great customer conversations - it's an art. To make it happen, advisers need to be maximising the impact of their voice and the words they use, both of which can be the most powerful tools available in a customer servicing environment. As a leader, how can you develop and empower teams to have effective customer conversations, on a consistent basis?
Are you facing a cash gap in Smart prepayment?
On the whole, Smart metering has been welcomed by suppliers. However, as we’ll cover in this blog, there are growing problems in the Smart PAYGO space, where challenges with technology, process, and customer behaviour are leaving suppliers financially exposed.
Re-platforming – Is it time to migrate to a new system?
For suppliers who haven’t yet migrated to a new customer management system, now might be the time to make a move. The demand from customers for advanced digital services is here to stay, while the ability to manage complex data is a necessity for meeting ever increasing regulatory and growth needs.
Market debt levels continue to rise with prices
Market debt levels have continued to rise as the the price cap rises - however we've also seen customers absorb a greater proportion of the price increases than expected. This isn't all good news - we're potentially starting to see a latent effect where customers are running out of options by which to cover the increased costs which will give rise to increased debt levels in Q4-23 / Q1-24.
Getting ‘winter ready’ – Weatherproof your pre-delinquency strategy
As we conclude what’s been a turbulent British summer, the uncertainty of autumn and winter is fast approaching, with our projections showing this will be another challenging period for customers. Due to government support being withdrawn, customers are likely to receive higher bills in winter 23 than in the same period last year.
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