[meldrewreborn]

OFGEM has launched a consultation which would ramp up protections for consumers whose smart meters don't work as advertised.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/defau...0327120759.pdf

This will introduce new penalties ( payable to consumers!) for suppliers that don't fix faulty smart meters within a reasonable time.

Long overdue I think we'd all agree.

[Tommysgirl]

@meldrewreborn

A very interesting read. Thanks for the information.

[wizzo227]

I have misgivings about an obligation to fix, because the root cause of smart meter problems often seems to be poor signal coverage in faraway parts of the country ( oop North ? ). That being difficult to fix, creating a legislative obligation that someone Must fix it isn't going to help much with the no-signal locations, and might cost a lot more money before anyone got it to work.
Could the obligation be instead that photographed meter reads At Least once per year, and optionally more often, from defined acceptable types of tamperproof camera ( == most smartphones ) be acceptable as A definitive bill-setting reading unless remote smets2 or comparable smart metering happened to be working well enough to supercede? Then there is also the 20th century way of sending a meter reader, which might still make sense somewhere, but not in a street where everybody else has a working smets2 meter. It would be annoying to not have time of use electricity pricing, but the cooker still works without a smets2 meter.

It should be loss of power which gets all the obligations to fix, without distractions about mere metering and billing not-quite-right details of single households. And there needs to be clear accountability and a priority process to answer the phone number on the substation gate so that qualified persons are sent out immediately while their qualified colleagues fmea the DNO plan around an outage and have decided what to get switched patched or otherwise mended safely. Heathrow makes a good case study; if the DNO were incapable of flipping a changeover switch inside Terminal-1 substation room in 18 hours then improvements to their process are proven to be necessary. Cross-training some of the most sensible customer-service staff from a biller desk such as EoN to do first response to DNO outage calls might make a sensible use of central money, instead of giving that money to the DNO.

[meldrewreborn]

@wizzo227

the obligation to fix will apply to matters under the control of the supplier. So a thick wall between the meter and the IHD (the IHD is covered!) wouldn’t be under the supplier control, nor would lack of WAN. The consultation makes this clear. But the obligation to fix and do it quickly is central to the ideas in the consultation, although there’s a long way to go before anything like this comes into effect.

[meldrewreborn]

Attention has increasingly been focused on the high numbers of smart meters that don’t work as advertised. Assessments vary depending on the definitions used, but some consider 20% of meter set ups to be substandard in operation. OFGEM are now getting serious on this matter, and interestingly the IHD which suppliers tend to regard as a nice to have but not essential component, might become accepted as a fundamental component. It’s been pointed out in the past that suppliers are incentivised to install meters not to make sure that they actually work. Attitudes are changing at high level and improvements will surely follow, eventually- this will not be immediate.

Suppliers should take note of the change in mood music from above and start work to improve their performance now. Customer expectations will have been raised. However all this will cost us more in our bills.

one thing that would be beneficial would be an upgrade in the diagnosis of customers issues, something we on the forum have been able to assist with for a long time. But a knee jerk “ let’s change the meter” approach is not necessarily the right approach - many removed meters are found to be fully operational when tested later, and the fault lay elsewhere.

Of course not all customers will be bothered about this as they either don’t yet have smart metering or are less than convinced of their benefits.

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by meldrewreborn

...
one thing that would be beneficial would be an upgrade in the diagnosis of customers issues, something we on the forum have been able to assist with for a long time. But a knee jerk “ let’s change the meter” approach is not necessarily the right approach

Agreed, but we (as quite informed) users understand particular problems in quite a lot of detail - other customers probably don't understand much about what their problem but are looking for a solution.

However my understanding of the reality of Customer Services in general (without being too unkind) is that are they are relatively poorly paid; have time-pressure to respond to as many calls per hour to earn bonus; maybe don't have a very detailed understanding of the system; are just working from on-screen scripts etc etc.

EOn claim that their Energy Specialists are fully trained, and are able to see problems through to the end without needing reference to management or more experienced members of the team.

However my reading of this is that they are on their own when handling problems without anyone else to refer to. Maybe working from home; maybe even located in South Africa (which has been mentioned on this forum before!!)

As I've said before, one particular gripe of mine from reading posts on here, is that (unlike other companies CS) EOn don't seem to allocate tickets to customer problems, so that if a CS agent can't solve the problem on that call it just disappears, so when the customer calls again there is no audit trail for the problem and they have to go through everything again with another member of CS.

[meldrewreborn]

@geoffers

I agree with all that you have written on the performance of Customer Services. But its the company that is at fault - the structure and so called systems don't seem to deliver what the customer actually needs. If OFGEM can actually introduce penalties - not payable to the regulator but to the affected customer - Suppliers will need to sharpen up their processes and performance.

I've made the point before that customers expect thing to work as advertised. I welcome the signs that OFGEM now seem to regard the IHD as an integral part of the smart metering service in the home.

Suppliers will have to replace parts to get IHDs functioning even after the 12 months guarantee has expired. I doubt that they will be liable to replace an IHD that a previous occupier has lost or removed. They will have to make efforts to provide WAN access wherever possible, perhaps through customer broadband or even satellite access. The suppliers will be responsible for fixing issues that are under their control - my only doubt relates to the DCC who operate without sufficient regulatory oversight in my view.