Scottish Power fined £18m for customer service failings

Scottish Power confirmed on Tuesday that it has agreed to pay out £18m for customer service failures.

The agreement with regulator Ofgem follows an investigation into customer service standards during the implementation of a new £200m IT system.

The fine will consist of up to £15m to vulnerable customers and £3m to charity.

Ofgem chief executive Dermot Nolan said: “Scottish Power let its customers down during the implementation of a new IT system. When things went wrong, it didn’t act quickly enough to fix them. This created frustration and worry for many customers, who also wasted a lot of time trying to contact the supplier by phone.

“The £18m payment sends a strong message to all energy companies about the importance of treating consumers well at all times, including while new systems are put in place.”

Neill Clitheroe, Scottish Power’s chief executive officer of Energy Retail and Generation, said: “I gave a guarantee that no customer would be left out of pocket by these issues and we continue to compensate customers who have been affected. Additional customer service advisors were added and we extended our opening hours to the longest in the industry in order to improve our customer service levels.

“With our new IT system now fully in place, our service performance has significantly improved and customers will start to see real benefits in managing their accounts.”

Ofgem said many customers experienced unacceptably long call waiting times with many calling multiple times and hanging up before getting through.

In addition, it said Scottish Power’s failures resulted in over 300,000 customers receiving late final bills, meaning that some customers did not promptly receive money they were owed.