Utilities regulator flags ‘backlog’ of complaints amid deluge of customer contacts

The volume of consumers who contacted the State’s energy and water regulator increased sharply in the first three months of 2023, contributing to a “backlog” of complaints waiting to be investigated.

In an update covering the first and second quarters of the year, the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) also said that the number of contacts it received that translated into complex complaints about a utility company has been steadily increasing over the last seven quarters to the highest level ever recorded in the first three months of the year. This broadly coincides with the start of a spike in global energy prices and household bills in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, which was then turbocharged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

The CRU received 3,788 customer contacts – either for informational purposes to register a complaint about a service provider – in the first quarter of this year, up 35 per cent on the same period in 2022. This translated into the opening of 152 complaints in the first quarter, a sharp 22 per cent increase from the final three months of last year and more than 183 per cent ahead of the first quarter of 2022 when just 83 cases were opened.

Despite a decline in the number of customer contacts in the second quarter of 2023 to 2,275, the overall trend continued with the number of complex complaint cases opened increasing 11 per cent quarter-on-quarter to 168.

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As a consequence, the CRU said: “There is a backlog of cases waiting to be investigated. Case processing times are therefore higher than we would like.”

In line with its market share, Electric Ireland, the supply division of ESB Networks, accounted for 75 complaints in the second quarter, up more than 17 per cent from the January to March period. Long call waiting times and “reduced responsiveness” was a particular issue with the larger suppliers in the market, the CRU said, accounting for 59 per cent of contacts related to Electric Ireland, 20 per cent related to SSE Airtricity and 9 per cent of contacts related to Bord Gáis Energy.

However, the regulator said the volume of contacts about communication and customer service issues had “greatly reduced” this year, from 11 per cent of the total in the final quarter of last year to just 2 per cent in the first half of 2023.

Overall, the CRU said that the emergency electricity credit was among the “key drivers” of the increase in contact levels in the first half as customers sought information about the scheme or complained about “significant difficulties” with contacting their supplier over its application.

A spokesman for the CRU said it does not publish quarterly data on the number of complaints closed or the findings of its investigations, publishing them instead in its annual report. Some 242 cases were closed in 2022, according to its most recent annual report, an increase of 28 per cent on the previous year 41 per cent of energy complaints investigated upheld in favour of the customer.