E.ON may well be one of the UK's largest energy companies, but that doesn't mean its customers are happy with what they're getting. Our guide to E.ON reviews looks at customer service, billing, tariffs, and complaints. Read on to find out what E.ON customers think about this enduring energy giant and discover what actual customers think in their E.ON reviews.
E.ON Reviews: An Overview
Serving around 3.8 million customers, E.ON is the third-largest energy supplier in Great Britain. However, the supplier's market share has shrunk from 17% to 12% over the last 10 years. We did some digging to find out if this decrease in market share is reflected in the E.ON reviews.
On customer review site Trustpilot, E.ON has an average rating of 3.4 out of five stars. Of the over 32,500 E.ON Energy reviews left by customers, 59% gave E.ON an excellent or great rating. On the other hand, 35% of the E.ON reviews reflect either bad or poor experiences.
| Excellent | Great | Average | Poor | Bad | Overall Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 47% | 12% | 6% | 4% | 31% | 3.4/5 ★★★☆☆ |
Correct as of December 15 2021
Whilst E.ON Next reviews on Trustpilot seem to fair a little better with an average rating of 4.4 out of five stars. With around 13,000 E.ON Next reviews left by customers, 84% gave E.ON an excellent or great rating. On the other hand, 13% of the E.ON Next reviews reflect either bad or poor experiences.
Considering the majority of E.ON customers have now been forcibly migrated to E.ON Next by E.ON, it would seem that customers are having a better experience than they did previously with E.ON.
The latest Citizens Advice survey for July to September 2021 gave E.ON an overall score of 2.4 out of five across its five categories. These E.ON reviews show that customers have had mixed experiences when it comes to dealing with the supplier. So in which areas is E.ON perfoming well, and where is there room for improvement?
| Complaints | Ease of Contact | Clear Bills | Ease of Switching | Customer Guarantees | Overall Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/5 ★☆☆☆☆ |
1.8/5 ★★☆☆☆ |
4/5 ★★★★☆ |
5/5 ★★★★★ |
3/5 ★★★☆☆ |
2.4/5 ★★☆☆☆ |
Correct as of 15 December 2021
Below we've analysed each of the five categories that make up E.ON's customer experience. We've reviewed what they’re experiencing, what E.ON says it's doing to improve, and whether it’s putting this into practice. Is E.ON merely talking the talk, or is it actually walking the walk? You're about to find out.
E.ON Customer Service Reviews
Before customers can judge the quality of the response they get when they contact E.ON customer service to complain, they need to receive a reply.
How long is it taking them to get a reply? Too long, according to E.ON Energy reviews from customers. What about the answers given to complainants? Short and abrupt. Let's have a look at the experience of customers and what E.ON says it’s doing about it.
Response time and quality
"It's always hard getting across to someone on the phone to discuss bill/complaints or make enquiries. I miss NPower. 3 stars given for the smart meter and also great customer service from the engineer that came to install it." (Rogundele, E.ON customer)
Do the complaints like the one above accurately reflect E.ON's response time? We did our Mystery Shopper test to find out. We contacted E.ON on each of its three main contact channels: by phone, live chat and via Facebook Messenger. We timed how long it took us to get in contact with an actual human being. The results are in:
- TELEPHONE: 16 minutes
- LIVE CHAT: 5 minutes
- FACEBOOK: 23 hours and 12 minutes
Conclusion? If you have a complaint to make, you'll get a quicker response via their live chat. However, you won't be able to express yourself in as much detail as you otherwise could do by phone. If you want to call them, put your phone on speakerphone and go about your day until somE.ONe picks up. If you stay on the line, you could be waiting a long time on the other end.
How much does it cost to call E.ON? The E.ON phone number is a 0345 number which according to GOV.UK should cost up to 16p per minute from a landline and between 3p to 65p per minute from a mobile.
These costs are approximate and you should check with your network provider if you want to know the exact cost.
If you're lucky enough to get through, don’t expect a precise answer to your question.
"Awful customer service, puerile emails and website treating adults like they are children, endless BS about renewable energy that nobody cares about, move to monthly payment to give us more bureaucracy, they also do not respond to legal cases. They are even worse than Northern Power. I have been listening to a stupid call that never ends thats full of Propaganda" (Dissatisfied E.ON Customer)
What's E.ON doing about this?
Unfortunately, E.ON has responded quite abruptly to customer reviews left on Trustpilot with a canned response:
Good morning, thank you for your review.
It does sound like you're now a customer of E.ON Next, I'm afraid we don't have access to their accounts.
Please get in touch directly at eonnext.com
They also have a Trust Pilot page https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/eonnext.com
As many of these customers leaving an E.ON review didn't make the choice to switch to E.ON Next, this was something the supplier forced on its customers, you would have thought they would have gotten their ducks in a row and been available to help customers rather than fobbing them off to their new supplier.
E.ON also claims on its customer reporting page to have recruited more staff in its contact centres. It goes on to emphasise that responding to “customers' queries in a timely manner continues to be a focus". If by "timely manner" they mean putting the customer through to a staff member rather than leaving them on hold for an obscene length of time, that would be a good start!
Bills and Meter Reading Reviews
'Bills and meter readings' was the third most common category that E.ON customers complain about according to the supplier's latest customer complaints report for July to September 2021. By looking at customer review websites, we would consider this to be the most common issue behind its customers' gripes. Let's break down this category to find out what its clients are unhappy about:
Inaccurate smart meters: Customers have reported that their energy usage, as displayed on the smart meter, is far in excess of actual reported usage. One customer reported a discrepancy of 36 kWh between what was shown (33 kWh) and what was actually consumed (3 kWh). Such inaccuracy undoubtedly leads to a much more expensive bill than expected, one that customers are not happy to pay.
Final bills when moving home: E.ON seems to be quick to take a last meter reading to collect money from its customers. The problem, however, is that they're just as quick to forget that they've done this. The recurring amnesia suffered by their collection agents causes them to collect money again... and again.
"New electric and gas meter fitted. That went well but I'm sure that the final electric reading on the old meter was incorrectly taken leading to a large final bill. Unfortunately I didn't question the installer and I can't prove the reading was wrong but I definitately not used approx 2000 units in less than 2 months." (E.ON customer)
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What's E.ON doing to fix this?
E.ON openly admits on its website that it has "been unsuccessful in obtaining meter readings for some time". However, it goes on to say that its smart meter roll-out allows them to correct this. Only time will tell if the number of complaints regarding inaccurate billing goes down as more households get a smart meter installed. As the roll-out is a prolonged process, we can still expect many more gripes about this heading E.ON's way.
The supplier once again, responds to many of the E.ON reviews with that canned response informing the customers they have been switched to E.ON Next and need to contact them to resolve the issue. On the occassions the supplier does write something different, it tends to be along the lines of requesting the customer to submit accurate readings.
Payments and Debt Reviews
E.ON has distinguished between the categories regarding payments, accounting for 11% of complaints, and customer's falling into debt, accounting for 2% of them. Since failure to facilitate payments of accurate bills invariably leads to debt or at least a debit on the account, we've put these in the same category.
"I told them to cancel my direct debit due to an increase in my tariff, which I didn't agree to. This put me into debt, which has now affected my credit score. Now I've got a debt collection company after me!" (Keeney, E.ON customer)
You'll note from the above comment that inaccurate billing, as detailed in the previous category, directly overlaps with the debt category. If customers are overcharged, they'll have a debit on their account. If they're paying more for fuel than they can afford, that puts them in the fuel poor category.
What's E.ON doing to fix this?
As detailed in our main E.ON guide, we set out the number of ways that E.ON boasts in "helping" its customers who are struggling to pay. These include the Warm Home Discount, E.ON Energy Fund and Affordable Warmth Scheme. These all sound like lovely philanthropic gestures, but amount to very little if E.ON is directly causing its customers to fall into debt in the first place.
So what does E.ON say it's doing to fix this problem? Very little, unfortunately. Its complaints reporting webpage is littered with empty phrases that don't point to any tangible solutions and it would seem the only way E.ON has been able to improve its complaint handling record is by transferring its customers to a different supplier:
"Recorded complaint volumes have decreased throughout 2021 due to the residential customer base migrating over to EON Next." (E.ON representative)
Tariffs and Pricing Reviews
Value for money is not one of E.ON's strong points. As you will have seen from our E.ON Tariffs guide, E.ON's standard tariff is more expensive than Ofgem's price cap. According to the E.ON reviews, the most common complaints about E.ON are about making bill payments and being on the right tariff.
Few customers seem to know what tariff they're on, particularly if they've been mis-sold one that they didn't want. E.ON is no stranger to the court's wrath against its mis-selling practices, as we saw back in 2014. Victims alleged that E.ON's door-to-door salespeople over-inflated the savings they'd get by switching to them.
Twelve million pounds in compensation was the slap on the face that the supplier received. While E.ON appears to have curbed this practice, customers are still bewildered why their bills seem to go up drastically and unexpectedly, despite consistent energy usage.
I was only with E.ON for three months. I paid my monthly direct debit of £78 for two months, then switched to another company and now I have got a bill for £264 and a threat of debt collectors. (Debbie, E.ON customer)
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What's E.ON doing to fix this?
E.ON has taken the odd move to transfer all its residential customers to E.ON Next. Any renewals will be proceesed through E.ON Next and all customer direct debits have been transferred. Any existing tariffs will be honoured, including Economy 7 tariffs.
E.ON Complaint Handling
According to E.ON's latest complaints report, the top issues its customers typically complain about are as follows:
- Customer service - 65%
- Bills and meter readings - 16%
- Payments - 11%
- My prices - 6%
- Debt and debt-related disconnections (not prepay) - 2%
Are these figures consistent with the published customer complaints? At Selectra, we grouped claims into each of the above categories separately, except for the "payments" and "debt" categories, which we considered together as they overlap considerably. We also assessed E.ON's complaint handling process, as this appeared to be another common theme among disgruntled clients.
As of July 2018, E.ON is required, like its competitors, to publish residential-customer complaints data. According to E.ON's 2021 Q3 quarterly report, we can see improvements (highlighted in green) and deteriorations (highlighted in red) compared to the previous quarter.
Complaints data from E.ON
| Quarter | Number of complaints opened | Number of complaints resolved | Percentage of complaints resolved in less than a day | Percentage of complaints resolved within eight weeks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 Q3 | 78,388 | 74,015 | 62% | 91% |
| 2021 Q2 | 97,155 | 92,664 | 61% | 90% |
| 2021 Q1 | 109,529 | 104,527 | 61% | 91% |
Observations:
E.ON has received 31,141 fewer complaints during this third quarter of 2021 compared to the first. As E.ON have openly admitted, this is due to the migration of customers from E.ON to E.ON Next. However, even with fewer complaints the resolution percentage has improved by a solitary one percent for next day resolutions and gone down by one percent for eight week resolutions.
If you have an E.ON complaint that hasn't been resolved by the period of eight weeks, you can escalate its claim to the Energy Ombudsman.
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E.ON's complaints procedure
E.ON sets out its complaints-handling process on its website. Accordingly, if the complaint can't be resolved on the same day, it is passed on to a Resolution Manager. This person is supposed to carry out an internal review of the case while keeping the complainant informed of the next steps to be taken and the time-frame for a final decision.
This all sounds lovely on paper, but according to many E.ON reviews, customers are not receiving this level of communication. Instead, after one day without a resolution, there appears to be no contact from E.ON. Has the complaint really been passed to the Resolution Manager? Does this person even exist? We don't know. What we do know, however, is that an increasing number of E.ON complainants are feeling frustrated from the lack of response received post complaint.
Complaint unresolved since 2017. After contacting different customer service agents, one finally replied. After exchanging many emails, they agreed months later to send a technician to my home… He said he would pass on the findings to E.ON. I have waited nearly half a year, and I still have not received a reply (Grace, E.ON customer)
What's E.ON doing to fix this?
E.ON has set out a clear complaints procedure. The problem, however, is that they're not consistently complying with it. This may be down to a few "rotten apples" among their staff who are failing to pass it on.
Perhaps the complaint has indeed been passed on to a Resolution Manager, but the latter fails to conduct an internal review. At the very worst, there may be a complete lack of internal compliance to ensure that E.ON's staff are following the correct complaints procedure.
According to a comment made by E.ON's customer agent, it appears that updating the customer within set time frames is not a priority. Instead, it is assumed that the customer is happy to be kept in limbo for eight weeks, after which the customer "ought to know" that he/she can escalate the complaint to the Ombudsman:
If the claim is over 56 days old, which it sounds like it is, you'll be able to go the Ombudsman straightaway. No need to wait for a letter. (Helena, Customer Complaints agent with E.ON)
What if I have not received a response after eight weeks?
We recommend that you make a note in your calendar of the date you submitted your complaint. Set yourself a reminder after eight weeks to escalate it to the Ombudsman. Don't wait longer than you have to. E.ON may well have forgotten about it and have no intention of keeping you updated.
You can pass your complaint to the Ombudsman, who will carry out an independent investigation. Any decision taken by the Ombudsman that you accept is binding on E.ON. Find their contact details below:
- Tel: 0330 440 1624
- Email: [email protected]
- Web: os-energy.org
- Post: PO Box 966, Warrington, WA4 9DF
Good to know: To make a complaint to E.ON, find the details of their complaints department on our E.ON Contact guide.
How do E.ON reviews compare to other suppliers?
E.ON customer service is ranked number 20 out of 22 energy suppliers, according to the latest survey from Citizens Advice. The organisation regularly compares UK energy suppliers across the following six categories:
- Average call-wait time
- Number of complaints per 10,000 customers
- Customers who had an accurate bill in the past year
- Bills and statements sent on time
- Switches completed within 21 days
- Customer guarantees
The Verdict: Is E.ON a good energy supplier?
| 100% renewable electricity | Long response times |
| Installs SMETS 2 smart meters | High number of complaints |
| Variety of tariffs | Expensive rates |
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Based on E.ON Energy reviews from customers, as well as our interactions with the supplier, we give E.ON two out of five stars for overall customer satisfaction.
We hope that now its customers have been switched to E.ON Next, they will receive a better level of customer service that is expected from a supplier which is one of the Big Six.
Complaints FAQs
How do I make a complaint to EON?
If you need to file a EON complaint, the easiest way to do so is by contacting the supplier on 0345 052 0000. EON will aim to solve the issue as soon as possible.
I am unhappy with the way EON resolved my complaint - is there anyone else I can contact?
If you are still unsatisfied with the resolution, you can then request a “deadlock letter” from EON. This letter serves as written confirmation that EON was unable to resolve the issue. You can then refer your complaint to the Energy Ombudsman. If the provider declines to issue you a deadlock letter, you can still refer the complaint to the Energy Ombudsman after eight weeks have passed since you first raised the complaint.
By far the most expensive energy company I have used. Avoid
See more See lessPayed them all up to date for their bill and then when I wanted to leave, they landed me with a £500 debt, saying their estimate was off and I should of been charged more…. Tried to resolve it with their customer service, took a month for someone to come back to me and all they offered was a £50 discount and payment period over 2 years.
See more See lessWe moved house and Eon were providing the gas and electricity. They would not have been my choice. The first interaction with customer services (when I finally got to chat with someone) the woman couldn't write English well, even to the point of saying something as a negative when it should have been a positive. I explained the situation and she just didn't understand. She then explained she had issues and couldn't help it. Bizarre. Another person took over. Then after eventually moving to a new supplier I get a final bill that is estimated. How can that be possible? I contact customer services on live chat and eventually get the bit to put me through to a human. I wait for 45 minutes. The operator then says "Hello, I am reading your comments so far." 2 minutes later they put a message saying that as I hadn't responded they were ending the chat and cut it off. Later I get a text message asking how the service was giving a 0 to 10 rating. I give 0 and it replies saying that I am not in a survey.
See more See lessVery dissapointed with Eon over the last 12 months. Been constantly fobbed off, being cut off on the phone or constantly told there having technical issues. I was expecting a call out, to be told on the day (3 hours after appointment time) that no one was coming because of a technical issue, but they would issue me £30 which iv never recieved. The connection to my smart meters haven't worked since being fitted, I have been left hours without electric waiting for codes to be sent to have to add manually. I have phoned this evening for my codes to be told they will be sent within 2 minutes, no wounder he said there was no need for me to wait on the phone, as I still have no code. This company is such a let down after being with them for years, I'm deffo looking at joining a different company in the near future.... SICK OF IT... SORT YOUR TECHNICAL ISSUES OUT SURELY THERE'S SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG TO HAVE THESE DAILY ISSUES! !! Iv got more important thing to do than sit on hold for wholes for my situation to still not be resolved!
See more See lessThis company is ageist. Check anyone that is old as my mum has had thing happen to her. Like this quart bill this month(October) come through at £2,937.45 for 4 months. The threaten her if she didn't pay it they will charge her £65 for late payment. Againt my mum account is now £2,937.45 in credit and new bill come out they want her now to pay £176.53 for the quartly. They said they can only return by cheque due to her paying by bank, so will take up to 1 week plus for her to get the money back. Rang today and they told me I have to ring back Monday(so they keep the money for over another 2plus day before being processed) This company is scaming the elderly in paying stupid bills. AVOID!!! having this company as nothing is good with it.
See more See lessAbsolutely DREADFUL company! Their so-called customer service is appalling, I didnt choose to move to them, they took over NPower so I didnt have a choice, and they immediately more than doubled my direct debit payment! I left them and I am now with Octopus and what a difference, they have a brilliant customer service team and reduced my direct debit to what it should be! So relieved to be rid of E-on, stay well away from them!
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