Extra Energy has come bottom of Citizens Advice’s complaints league table for business customers for the second time, receiving a ratio of 1231.2 complaints per 10,000 customers.

The ranking measures how effectively energy suppliers are dealing with complaints from small business customers across Great Britain. The quarterly ranking was launched in January, meaning that Extra Energy has been in bottom place both times the league table has been published. Common problems for Extra Energy business customers included not being notified when a contract was coming to an end and subsequently rolled onto a more expensive tariffs. When this happened small businesses had problems cancelling their contracts.

At the top of the table, SSE delivers the best complaints handling score of 11.7 per 10,000 customers. Last quarter’s best performer, E.ON, takes second place – but with an improved score of 17.9 per 10,000 customers.

Citizens Advice Chief Executive, Gillian Guy, said: “Firms rely on a smooth service from energy suppliers to grow and develop. Problems such as inaccurate bills or contract issues can undermine these efforts and waste small businesses’ precious time and money.

“Citizens Advice’s small business complaints league table can help firms build up a picture of how well energy suppliers are managing problems for their business customers.

The small business league table ranks the performance of the 15 largest firms providing energy to 10,000 or more small non-domestic customers. These business customers are defined as those who have 10 or fewer staff or a turnover of under £1.7 million.

Suppliers’ scores are calculated based on the seriousness of the complaint against them and how long it took to resolve. Firms with lower complaints ratios are better at resolving complaints than those with high scores. The data is based on the number of non-domestic consumers that have contacted an independent organisation for advice or support with an energy problem. Complaints made to the Citizens Advice consumer service, the Extra Help Unit and Ombudsman Services: Energy are weighted differently to reflect the severity of the complaint. Weightings have been allocated to reflect the seriousness of the complaint and the time and effort spent by the consumer to get their problem resolved. The weightings in the model place greater emphasis on situations where the consumer has had to repeatedly contact their supplier, or another agency, because the company has failed to deal with their problem. The measures used in the model are outlined in the methodology.

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