After months of warnings about the rising price of gas and electricity, on October 1st this became a reality. And while the government has introduced their ‘Energy Price Guarantee’ scheme in response, consumers across the UK will still feel the pinch.
This could mean several households will be looking to get out of costly fixed deals to switch to a default tariff and benefit from the new measures.
And research shows three negative reviews can drive away customers by almost 60 percent. So, with 486 million active users, Twitter has become an extensive platform for engaged consumers to announce both praise and complaints in equal measure.
Considering this, our researchers at The Solar Centre analysed over 3100 tweets – using a unique sentiment analysis tool – to discover which of the ‘Big Six’ energy companies received the most negative mentions across an industry that has been under scrutiny for many months.
This Provisional Order comes ahead of the findings of a full market review into how suppliers make sure they are supporting customers struggling with bills.
British Gas follows closely with 671 negative mentions. The energy company received the second-highest percentage of complaints about ‘customer service’ (45%) and ‘delays’ (15%) and third-highest percentage of complaints about ‘cost’ (72%) and ‘communication’ (26%) compared to any other energy company analysed.
This may come as no surprise to its customers as British Gas’s customer service was given a low rating (2.95/5) from Citizens Advice earlier this year. However, it seems British Gas is trying to improve its customer service by offering its customers a £400 rebate to help with rising costs this winter.
EDF energy completes the top three energy firms with the highest number of negative tweets (449). It received the highest negative tweet score for ‘appliances’ (31%) and third highest for ‘customer service’ (44%) and ‘delay’ (14%).
At the other end of the spectrum, E.ON has the lowest number of negative tweets with 361. When analysing the sentiments, ‘customer service’, ‘delays’ and ‘appliance’ are the words with the best scores.
Despite having the lowest number of negative tweets, E.ON received the most venemous complaints – with the highest proportion of tweets containing swear words out of the Big 6.
Overall, ‘cost’, is the most tweeted negative keyword with Ovo receiving the highest percentage of this keyword (75%). This is followed by ‘customer service’ – the most popular negative keyword for SSE overall (47%) – and ‘communication’ takes third place.
