Customer Charter

Treating customers fairly

with a five star service.
A five star service
Our customer charter outlines how we
plan to provide you with a five star
service while always treating you fairly.
We’ve broken things down into five key areas and highlighted
what we’re doing in right now, what we’ve got planned for the
future, and how we’re going to keep track of our progress
towards reaching that five star goal.

Woven throughout this is our commitment to treat you

fairly. This means making it a priority to give you the right
information, at the right time, in plain English. To be clear,
transparent and always let you know where you stand.

We want you to feel confident that you can get on with the
fun things in life, safe in the knowledge that we’re working on
the issues that matter and we’ve got your best interests
at heart.

Thanks for being with Spark, it’s great to have you with us.

Chris Gauld
CEO

Customer Charter
 Customer Service
When you needed us, were we there? How easy was it to get in touch?
How helpful were the team? Did you get the answer you were looking for?

Billing
Was your bill on time? Was it accurate? Was it clear and easy to understand?

Our five stars

Complaint Handling
It’s all very well saying that we’ll
How quickly did we respond to your complaint? Was the complaint
provide you with a five star service, handled efficiently and professionally? Was it resolved quickly and
but what does that mean in real to your satisfaction?
life? Well, our aim is simple – we
want all of our customers to be so
satisfied that you’ll give us the Value for Money
highest possible rating: 5/5. Does your tariff give you a good deal? Does the service you receive represent
good value for the money you spend?
To help us focus on what’s important,
we’ll break this down into five key areas:

Energy Saving Advice

What information is available to you? How good is that information?
Are we taking action to help you cut your bills and reduce your
consumption to benefit the environment?
We’ll go into each of these areas in a bit more detail to let you know what we’re
doing now and what we’ve got planned.

2 Customer Charter
 Customer Service
What we’re doing now What’s next
Keeping our call times low The Spark App
You can check our indicative call waiting times on the website before you Soon you’ll be able to check your balance, pay a bill, set up a Direct Debit,
call, so you know what to expect, because we know you’ve got better things enter a meter reading and more with our new Spark Energy App. We
to do than be hanging on the phone,. So if it’s before 6pm during the week understand that our customers want easy access to all aspects of their
or 1pm on Saturday and you’re waiting for more than 90 seconds, we’ll offer account from their mobile device both at home and on the move. Not
you a call back. only that, over 30% of our online traffic comes from mobiles and tablets,
and that number is set to grow, so it’s a no-brainer for us to provide an
Above all, everyone will receive the same access, whether you're a new or optimised solution for customers that works seamlessly with, and takes
old customer, and regardless of how you pay. advantage of, all of the additional features of your device.

Keeping call costs down too Specialist teams

We’ve replaced all of our old 0845 numbers with new 0345 numbers. Calls We’re working to develop our customer service and support staff, training
to these numbers are included in your bundled minutes from a mobile separate teams with different specialist skillsets. We’ll tailor their abilities
– so there’re no nasty surprises when your bill comes in. Even if you don’t to your needs and make sure that there’s always someone around with the
have any minutes on your contract, or don’t have a contract at all, it’ll still knowledge and experience to deal with your issues.
cost the same as a local call to a number starting 01 or 02.
Being there when you need us
Offering you more ways to get in touch We realise that energy never stops, so we’re going to look at new ways to be
We’ve invested in a great live web chat system to give you another way to there when we know that you need us, whether that’s at peak call times or
get in touch. It’s great from a mobile device, on the move, or for times when out of hours. The first step is to develop a new technology for our website
you can’t make a call and it’s often faster than calling altogether. If you’d whereby you can quiz a virtual assistant, 24 hours a day, to get the answers
rather email, that’s fine too. You should expect a response in around to most of your questions.
two business days.
Helping you manage your money
Improving our website and communications Our new partnership with independent debt management organisation
As well as our new even-more-functional, fully-adaptive website, we’ve also PayPlan will provide the team with the training they need to identify
redesigned our letters and emails to make them clearer and friendlier. It’s customers with financial difficulties and offer them a free consultation
right that you should always be clear about the choices that you’re facing, so to get back on track. PayPlan have over 20 years’ experience dealing
we’ve broken it all down for you in a straightforward way. You’ll know the real with people’s money issues and, as well as training our staff and
cost of each payment method, and how you can save money at any time – consulting our customers, we’ll be working with them to produce loads
new customer or not. of useful info for our website that can accessed by anyone, any time.

Listening to what you think

We’ve created our own open and honest review site so we’re always up-to-
date with your feedback. We’re happy to say that we’re already scoring well
and using all your reviews and comments to help keep improving.
Five star customer service
4 Customer Charter
 What’s next
More bills right first time
We know that one of the biggest reasons people have to call us is to check
that their bill is correct. In most cases, an up-to-date meter reading from
the customer will sort things out, but we’re investing in our sytems and
databases to make sure that our bills are as accurate as possible, first time,
every time.

Fewer estimated bills

It’s not always easy to remember to send us a meter reading so we’re
reviewing the way we communicate with you to remind you. Whether it’s by
text message, email, letter, or through our app; we’ll work harder to keep you
up-to-date and your account on track.

Making it clearer if your bill is an estimate

We’ll be doing more design work on our bills and statements to make it even
clearer if they’ve been based on estimates or actual reads, so you always
know where you stand.

Smart Meters
Billing We’re fully behind the national roll-out of Smart Meters to help ultimately
make estimated bills a thing of the past. In the meantime, we’ll continue
to contact you each month and ask for a meter read - just to keep
What we’re doing now everything right.
Bills and statements you can understand
We’ve given our bills and statements a clearer, cleaner design, all set out in
plain English. They’re easy to follow throughout, with all the most important
information up front and easy to find. Once a year we'll send all our
customers an annual statement so they can review their usage from one
Five star billing
year to ethe next - prepayment customers too!
The information you’d need to switch
With our new bills and statements it’s easier than ever to find the
information you need to compare your tariff against others in the market.
We’ll give you your Tariff Comparison Rates and explain what they mean,
so you’ll always be on top of things.

6 Customer Charter
 Complaint handling
What we’re doing now
Keeping things simple
If you’re unhappy, our complaints process has 3 simple steps which are
outlined on our website at sparkenergy.co.uk/useful-info/complaints. We
hope that we can resolve your issues quickly by speaking to one of the team,
but if you want to raise a formal complaint then you’ll know where you stand
every step of the way.

Responding within two business days

We’ll always aim to respond to your complaint within two business days,
outlining the main issues that you’ve highlighted and what we’re doing to
address them. If there’s been a delay we’ll always contact you to let you
know what’s happening and how long it’s going to take.

Getting to the root of the problem

We’ve set up a panel of representatives from across Spark who meet
regularly to look at all your feedback and investigate any common problems.
Our aim is to look beyond the immediate issue, into our systems and What’s next
processes and address the root cause to avoid the same problems .
Software upgrades
Using social media Our new email management system will automatically assign each query
We’ve dedicated a team of staff to monitoring social media for comments or complaint with a unique reference number which we’ll carry through
or complaints, opening up another channel for customers to get in touch each interaction with you. We’ll be able to efficiently track each stage of
and voice their opinions. your complaint, directing you back to the same agent from first contact
through to resolution. You can be confident that you’re being served by
the right person with the right information every time.

Five star complaint handling

?
Did you know?
We’re open and honest about how we’re doing, and you can keep
track of our complaints performance on the website at sparkenergy.
co.uk/complaints-performance. If you’ve got any feedback about your
experiences or any suggestions for the future we’d love to hear them.
Get in touch on customerexperience@sparkenergy.co.uk.
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 Value for money
What we’re doing now What’s next
Our price promise New tariff options
Why pay over the odds for your energy? When you move in with Spark, you’ll We’re developing a new tariff for the social and affordable housing market.
join Tenant Saver (Variable) – a standard tariff that’s cheaper than the Big It’ll be a really strong offering which opens up some exclusive affordable
Six average. We check the prices monthly to make sure they’re competitive, rates for those on lower incomes. We feel that this new tariff offers a real
and if anything needs to change, we’ll fix it within 90 days. We’ll keep an eye opportunity for Spark to be socially conscious and make a difference to
on things, so you don’t have to, and we’ll always let you know if you can save.* the lives of people in need.
Keeping you informed New payment options
Whether you’re a new customer or you’ve been with us a while, our new bills We’ll also be launching a new tariff that utilises automatic payments from
and statements will always let you know if you could be saving and how to your debit card. This offers a more flexible alternative to the Direct Debit,
do it. With readily available Tariff Comparison Rates too, you’ll always know meaning that you’ll only pay for the energy you actually use each month.
where you stand. You’ll save money versus our Monthly Premium tariff because you pay
*What does ‘cheaper than the Big Six average’ mean? To make sure that we’re always automatically, which reduces the risk of building up debt on your account.
competitive when you inherit us, we’ll compare the prices of our standard variable tariff, Tenant
Saver (Variable), with the average of the standard variable tariff prices (SVT prices) of the Big Six
energy suppliers – SSE, EDF Energy, Scottish Power, E.ON, npower, and British Gas. We base our
comparison on both Pay As You Go and Pay on receipt of bill payment methods, for a typical
medium dual-fuel household consuming 3,100 kWh of electricity and 12,500 kWh of gas per
year (including dual-fuel discounts). Using Energylinx data, we make the comparison monthly, Five star value for money
based on the SVT prices which are in effect on the last day of the preceding month, across all
regions in Great Britain. We publish our comparison reports on our website monthly – you can
find them at sparkenergy.co.uk/price-promise or request a hard copy by calling 0345 034 7474.
If the Big Six SVT prices change, and if we need to, we’ll adjust our own tariff prices to ensure they
comply with our guarantee within a maximum of 90 days of the date on which the relevant
change(s) to the SVT prices take effect.

10
 What’s next
Monthly energy saving tips
We’ve recently been developing our blog and social media presence,
creating original and interesting content to engage with our customers.
One topic that we’ll be promoting more of is energy efficiency, with a
monthly blog and regular Facebook and Twitter updates to keep
you informed.

Smart thermostats
We’re excited to be working on a new smart thermostat product,
which will allow you to access and control your heating online via your
PC or an easy-to-use smartphone app.

The thing that separates our smart thermostat from other suppliers’ is
the ability to control two separate ‘zones’ within the home. So you needn’t
waste energy heating both upstairs and downstairs, if you know you’re only
going to be in one area at a time.

We hope that this new product will offer significant savings versus traditional
thermostats and even over other smart thermostats in the market.

Energy saving advice at every touch point

It’s our ultimate aim to fully integrate energy saving advice into every stage

Energy saving advice

of your journey. We’ve got a long way to go, but we want to be able to offer
useful, achievable and relevant advice to every customer every step of
the way.
What we’re doing now
Energy Pioneers
Consumption shown bills and statements To help lead the way and show you exactly how you could save both energy
Our newly redesigned bills and statements offer a visual comparison and money, we’ll be recruiting a group of Energy Pioneers. Our pioneers will
between your current monthly usage figures and the same month last year, be real customers who we know could be saving by making a few simple
to highlight where you’ve made savings or perhaps need to work harder. changes. We’ll show them how and follow them through their journey to
being fully engaged and efficient consumers – inspiring others to act now
and take control of their energy.

Five star energy saving advice

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 Measuring success
How will we know how well we’re doing?
Customer satisfaction survey
To give you a five star service, we need to know what matters
to you most, so we carry out a satisfaction survey with all our
customers every six months. The survey is conducted by our
independent research partners ensuring that your responses
are kept entirely anonymous. What’s more, we use Which?
survey methods, to keep our comparisons accurate and our
standards as high as the best in our industry.

Sparkenergyreviews.co.uk
We’ll continue to encourage customers to use our own review
site, along with our satisfaction survey and other review sites
to ensure that we’re getting the broadest and most accurate
picture of our performance.

Recommend us to a friend
Ultimately, we want you to be so happy that you’ll recommend
us to your friends and family. This will be our most important
measure of success, so once a year we’ll ask you how likely
you are to do it.

Five star service

To see how we’re doing visit sparkenergyreviews.co.uk

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Save time, visit www.sparkenergy.co.uk

For domestic customers – BOOKLET/CUSTOMERCHARTER – Printed: September 2016

Manage your account Give meter readings
Get your bills Tell us if you’re moving

Make a payment And handy live chat too

If you’d like to talk, our call centre is UK-based and you’ll
find us on Facebook and Twitter too.

Email us
support@sparkenergy.co.uk

Call us
0345 034 7474
8am–6pm weekdays
9am–1pm Saturdays

Live chat
www.sparkenergy.co.uk
Say hello
Facebook and Twitter –
@SparkEnergyUK

Ettrick Riverside, Dunsdale Road, Selkirk TD7 5EB