ENERGY provider British Gas makes things simpler for customers after new survey shows one in four say they are spending too long managing their energy bills and contract renewals.
In the current economic climate, no business wants to spend time trying to decipher complicated bills. A recent survey of 1000 businesses revealed that most bill payers couldn't define the terms on their bills including 'kilowatt hour', 'out of contract', 'deemed pricing' and 'unit price'. ¹
The results sparked British Gas into working closely with commercial training firm, Plain English Campaign (PEC), to produce a new guide that helped consumers understand their bills and reduce their administration time. This action produced immediate results with industry watchdog, Which?, recently rating British Gas with five stars for having simple, clear bills after examining the key communications sent out by the energy provider.
This campaign follows the online Business Energy Insight (BEI) drive that sets out to clarify British Gas Business commercial electricity prices and help business owners to manage their energy use.
A new survey by industry research providers OnePoll revealed that over half of the 500 UK businesses interviewed had concerns regarding their energy expenditure, but less than 20% actually had staff both monitoring, and managing, energy costs.² These figures go some way to explain why a report on business energy from British Gas found that the average businesses uses £1 in every £2 on energy use out of office hours.³ This inefficient energy use was attributed to office equipment and lights left on overnight. The average energy bill for a UK business is £2300 so firms could potentially save £1000 every month.
This energy survey and the BEI campaign are underpinned by data from smart meters. Smart meters provide a clear visual report of energy used every hour, day, week and month. This data then populates an intuitive web-based BEI platform so businesses can see when and where they are consuming energy. These insights can help identify faulty equipment and other areas of wastage, ultimately cutting costs.
The commitment to helping businesses save money by understanding energy use and tariff structures has seen numerous commercial customers switch to British Gas to make the most of the BEI benefits.
Resources
1. http://money.aol.co.uk/2012/07/11/british-gas-guide-jargon-free/
2. http://www.moneyexpert.com/financial-news/utilities-dual/800580981/risingcostofenergystillaconcernforbusinesses/article.aspx
3. http://www.uswitchforbusiness.com/blog/2012/02/07/are-you-racking-up-half-your-business-electricity-bill-after-hours
