Making a complaint

Although we do our best to provide fantastic customer service to all our customers, there may be instances where we’re not able to provide a resolution to your satisfaction.

If you have concerns or would like to make a complaint, please get in touch with our Customer Service team by phone on 0161 837 3395. Make sure to provide as much information as possible, so we can address your concern to the best of our ability.

We will endeavour to rectify the issue on the first interaction. Where we aren’t able to provide a resolution on the first interaction, your complaint will be acknowledged, and you will be provided with a unique reference number.

• Resolving your complaint
• Contacting the Energy Ombudsman
• Citizen’s Advice Consumer Service

Once a complaint has been raised our Customer Service team will investigate your concerns. If we can’t put things right straight away, we will keep you informed throughout the course of our investigation.

As part of a resolution, we may provide the following;

• An explanation of the circumstances around your complaint
• A formal apology
• An offer of compensation

In most cases, we aim to resolve your complaint as soon as possible. However, for some cases this could take up to eight weeks.

If you would like to check on the progress of your query please contact our Customer Service team on 0161 837 3395.

Escalating your complaint

If after the eight week resolution period you still feel your complaint has not been addressed appropriately, you can escalate your complaint through our Complaints Investigation form here.

Please note, this form should only be used for existing complaints where we have not met our expected resolution window. New complaints, or existing complaints that are still within the eight week resolution period, will be passed on to our Customer Service team to progress through our normal Complaints process.

After eight weeks, or if you’ve received a deadlock/final position letter and you’re a micro-business customer¹, you have the right to refer your complaint free of charge to the Energy Ombudsman. This is an independent arbitrator that specialises in resolving energy customer complaints.

Where you decide to go to the Ombudsman you must contact them within 12 months of receiving our letter. The ombudsman will only make a decision on the information that has been presented to them on both sides. The Ombudsman will then provide their decision, should you accept their decision, this becomes binding on us.

To raise a complaint with the Ombudsman you will need to fall into the following categories:

• The complaint is over eight weeks old and you don’t have an agreed resolution
• You’ve received a deadlock letter where we haven’t managed to agree a resolution, which will outline what actions have been taken up to this point

You can contact the Energy Ombudsman here:

Phone: 0330 440 1624
Email: enquiry@energyombudsman.org
Website: www.energyombudsman.org
Post: PO Box 966, Warrington, WA4 9DF

¹A Company is considered a ‘micro-business’ if it meets any one of the following criteria:

• For gas supply agreements with SEFE Energy, it consumes less than 293,071 kWh of gas a year
• For electricity supply agreements with SEFE Energy, it consumes less than 100,000 kWh electricity a year
• For gas and/or electricity supply agreements with SEFE Energy, it has fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover, or annual balance sheet total, of less than €2 million

The Citizens Advice consumer service provides free, independent help and advice to small businesses on energy issues, including making complaints.

The service is available Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm (closed on bank holidays) and can be reach by phone here:

• Citizens Advice consumer helpline: 0808 223 1133
• Textphone: 18001 0808 223 1133
• To contact a Welsh-speaking adviser: 0808 223 1144
• Textphone to contact a Welsh-speaking adviser: 18001 0808 223 1144