British Gas Under Fire For Using More Call Centres In India

British Gas has continued to make redundancies and move customer service business overseas despite figures from Energywatch, the industry monitor, expected to show that it has the worst customer service record of the big six energy suppliers. The company, which reported a fivefold increase in profits last month, is using call centres in India to contact customers who are struggling to pay their bills, The Times has learnt. It is also sending customers’ e-mail inquiries, including requests to change account names from those of bereaved relatives, to two call centres in Bombay and Poona, where it has about 1,000 staff. The push to send customer service work abroad comes despite a pledge in 2005 by the energy supplier that it would restrict such moves to back-office and administrative tasks that did not involve customers. British Gas said that it was using the overseas call centres as part of a concerted attack on costs.The Times has also learnt that 60 sales managers will be made redundant over the next few months with only the statutory minimum redundancy pay. The cuts are part of a continuing programme to remove 1,500 jobs from the company. Staff are believed to be furious that redundancies are being made at the same time that more than 100 sales representatives are being taken to Tenerife for a £300,000 incentive break in a luxury hotel. A spokesman for British Gas said: “We are making strenuous efforts to reduce costs to be more competitive in our customer pricing. This includes various redundancies, which we have detailed over the past year or so, and these are being gradually implemented. We have said that we will use offshoring to cut back on costs. However, we are fully committed to our UK workforce, where we have over 10,000 contact agents. If you call us from the UK, that is who you will speak to.” British Gas has come under scrutiny since it revealed last month that its residential arm made an annual profit of £571 million. The UK’s biggest energy supplier raised its prices by 15 per cent in January, citing a 60 per cent increase in wholesale energy costs in the past six months. The residential arm is thought to have been loss-making in the second half of the year. Ofgem, the energy market regulator, said on the same day that British Gas announced its profit that it would conduct an investigation into the market amid rising concern that domination by six suppliers was unhealthy. Energywatch is expected to reveal on Tuesday that British Gas received more complaints per 100,000 customers than any other energy supplier between December and February. However, the number of complaints has been falling and the gap between British Gas and the next-worst company has narrowed. Significant problems happened in the first half of 2007 when it transferred its 16 million customers to an online billing system. Meanwhile, it emerged last night that energy suppliers may be asked to provide a voluntary fund of between £100 million and £200 million to help people struggling to pay their bills. Discussions are understood to be taking place between suppliers and the Government and, if an agreement is reached, proposals could be announced in Wednesday’s Budget.

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