The heat is on: Energy firms struggle to cope with calls

electricity meter

electricity meterEnergy companies are struggling to deal with customer inquiries following the introduction of the price ceiling for gas and electricity on January 1, the AD reported on Wednesday.

Customers are complaining about long waits to get answers to questions and about IT problems which have left them unable to monitor their energy usage or report their meter readings at the start of the year, the paper said.

The problems are particularly acute for customers without smart meters or who have not given permission to automatically share their details, the paper said.

Energy firms need to have accurate meter readings from January 1 to be able to implement the energy price cap which will run throughout 2023.

The energy price ceiling won’t be the same for everybody

Eneco said the number of people using its app had gone up 2.5 times since the beginning of the year. ‘Our system cannot cope, and so we have introduced an online queue to access it,’ a spokeswoman told the paper.

Essent has taken to ending telephone inquiry waiting times after three minutes because of the problems. ‘But our customers can chat with us online,’ a spokeswoman said.

Customers also have questions about changes in value added tax on energy, which is going back up to 21% from the start of the year, RTL Nieuws said earlier this week.

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