Tonik Energy reviews: is it a good energy supplier?

Tonik Energy reviews online are overwhelmingly positive. With nearly 75% of customer reviews on Trustpilot ranking the supplier excellent or good, most customers appear to be more than satisfied with their 100% green gas and electricity provider. Here we take a deeper look at Tonik Energy customer reviews to see what people thought of the failed supplier..

Tonik Energy has ceased trading. All of Tonik Energy's 130,000 customers were transferred to Scottish Power on October 10, 2020.

Tonik Energy reviews

In its short lifespan, Tonik Energy developed many loyal customers that were more than happy to renew their tariffs, so surely this green gas and renewable electricity provider got something right.

Let’s break down Tonik Energy reviews into customer service, tariffs and prices, bills and account management, and complaint handling to see what it did well and where there was room for improvement.

Customer service

Customer service can make or break an energy supplier. Sure, cheap tariffs are great but they don’t mean much if you can’t get through to your provider when you need to. On its website, Tonik claimed it aims to deliver excellent customer service to all customers, so what did excellent customer service mean to Tonik?

For Tonik Energy, great customer service went well beyond call centres. It wanted to add value to the lives of its customers through innovative eco-friendly technology, while working together to make the UK’s future greener and cleaner.

The company’s overall attitude towards customers was quite different from that of a lot of the other suppliers. To Tonik Energy, everyone who had a Tonik tariff was part of the movement towards a greener future, rather than just being another number - this is why Tonik Energy professed to have members instead of customers.

It seems this approach worked: in 2018, Tonik won the Renewable Energy Awards (RAE) British Renewable Energy Award for ‘Customer Service Recognition'.

How does all this add up with the experience of actual Tonik ‘members’? It seems the supplier did live up to its big statements as Tonik Energy UK reviews show customers were generally very happy with the service they received.

Across a number of review sites, many Tonik Energy reviews mention how prompt the customer service was. Emails were typically responded to within two days and, according to Citizens Advice, Tonik answered the phone in just one minute nineteen seconds on average. Many customers also praise the friendliness and knowledge of Tonik’s call centre staff.

It is a pleasure to deal with an energy company who provides green energy, answer the phones quickly, listen to your queries and offers excellent customer service. Best customer service from any energy company over the last 30+ years. Completely hassle-free experience. Kath

Reviews of Tonik Energy also show praise for the user-friendliness of the website. The Help and Advice page, in particular, contained answers to nearly every question you can think of.

I’ve been with Tonik for the past year and find their website so very clear and easy to operate with my limited computer skills as a senior citizen. Anonymous Tonik Energy customer

Tariffs and prices

Tonik provided its members with 100% green energy while also aiming to help them halve their energy bills. With this statement, you would expect Tonik to have offered some very competitive prices, but before looking at Tonik Energy customer reviews in this area, let’s take a look at its green tariff credentials.

First, were Tonik Energy’s tariffs 100% renewable as they claim? Yes, they were. Ofgem awarded Tonik Energy Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin (REGO) certificates, confirming that every kilowatt of its energy comes from renewable sources.

The provider used 100% renewable electricity, 10% renewable gas, and offered members the option to carbon offset the remaining 90%. This is an aspect of the company that we can’t fault, so much so that we think Tonik was one of the better renewable energy suppliers on the UK market.

Now price. It seems that its tariffs weren’t just environmentally friendly, they were also very reasonably priced. The main sentiment expressed by members in reviews for Tonik Energy is that all its tariffs were excellent value for money, fair and competitive. In 2019, Which?’ annual survey gave the supplier an impressive 4 out of 5 for value of money.

Many Tonik Energy UK reviews do acknowledge that its prices may not have been the lowest in the UK, but they aren’t complaining. They believe the prices were reasonable and were more than happy to pay that little bit more for Tonik’s great customer service and 100% renewable energy.

Prices may not be the absolute cheapest, however, they are still very competitive. For the sake of a few £ a year extra their customer service more than makes up for it. Peter

Bills and account management

Next, let’s review Tonik Energy bills and account management. Was it easy to read monthly energy bill and manage your account?

Sticking to its environment-friendly approach, the supplier did not send any paper statements, so all bills are digital. For some people, this will already be completely normal as more and more companies are heading in this direction. For others, it might feel a bit disconcerting not to receive a paper bill every month, but Tonik made it really easy to view your digital bills whenever through its online portal.

Digital bills are actually really practical: they are all kept in one place and you don’t need to worry about losing them. Want to see your bill from six months ago? Easy, just log in to your account and you can see all of your bills, including any annual statements.

Tonik Energy reviews consistently praise the clarity of the company’s bills, stating they were concise, accurate and very easy to understand. Again, in Which?’s 2019 review of Tonik Energy, the supplier received full marks for bill accuracy (5/5) and a good 4 out of 5 for bill clarity.

Tonik has always been clear and concise with its tariffs, bills and all communication. John

According to Tonik Energy customer reviews, the online account system was also really easy to navigate and manage. It was quick and painless to submit meter readings and customers even received email reminders to enter regular readings.

Positive Tonik energy reviews also show that customers really appreciated the live balance feature, which helped them keep on top of how much energy they used. Logging in to their Tonik Energy account was also quick and easy, even for those who aren't tech-savvy.

A downside to the provider’s account management is that it did not have a mobile app, but this isn’t something that appeared to bother customers- perhaps this is why Tonik wasn't concerned about developing one. After all, they were able to log in to their account via mobile through the mobile-responsive website, so could still access their account when they were out and about.

Renewing and closing accounts

When it comes to renewing tariffs, everything could be handled online and Tonik Energy customer reviews praise how easy it was to do so. Everything could be sorted in just three simple clicks.

However, while there is a lot of praise for Tonik Energy’s account management, it was not perfect. We found more than one Tonik Energy review in which the customer complained about difficulties with receiving overdue credit when they left for another provider. The credit was paid, but there are some delays in the process, so this is clearly an area where Tonik could have improved.

Complaint handling

Finally, how good was Tonik Energy at handling complaints? The gas and electricity supplier’s latest figures (19) show that over the year it received a total of 5784 complaints, which translates to around 2210 per 100,000 customers. Of these complaints, 46% were resolved by the end of the next working day and 84% were resolved within 8 weeks.

These aren’t bad figures for a year, and when looked at on a quarterly basis, the provider seems to be getting better and more efficient at resolving complaints.

As you can see from the table above, while the number of complaints increased during each quarter of 2019 (which can be expected as the number of customers grew), the amount being resolved by the end of the next working day and within 8 weeks also improved.

Need to issue a complaint with Tonik? Find out how to contact the supplier in our dedicated Tonik Energy contact guide.

The provider stated that it was committed to resolving any issues in a fair and transparent way and would admit when it did something wrong: a very refreshing attitude which we're sorry has disappeared from the energy scene.

Reviews of Tonik Energy online point to the individual efforts that its customer support agents went to in order to resolve any issues, and customers were reassured that their problems were taken seriously.

I would just like to recognise Tom from the social media team. Although my problems are still ongoing from my recent switch from another provider…. Tom has always been very helpful, professional & knowledgeable. Sarah

Highlighting how much notice the supplier took of its customers, it tried to reply to every single customer review left on online sites, whether good or bad. If someone had experienced problems and left a negative review, an agent would reply, apologise and ask for more information so they could investigate and fix whatever went wrong.

Tonik Energy reviews on Trustpilot and Which?

Tonik Energy customer reviews on various platforms are largely positive. Members weren’t just satisfied, they were beyond happy with the company. They consistently ranked the provider well above the biggest suppliers in surveys, as well as ahead of many other challenger providers.

Trustpilot

Tonik Energy reviews on Trustpilot were very positive, with 74% of all reviews ranking the supplier as excellent (the highest ranking possible) and 12% ranking it as good. This gave Tonik Energy a Trustpilot score of 4.2 out of 5, which is amongst the highest ratings we have seen on the review site.

Which?

On Which?, Tonik Energy reviews for 2019 were also great. With a customer satisfaction score of 71%, including full marks for bill accuracy and an impressive 4 out of 5 for all other aspects measured (bill clarity, value for money, customer service and digital tools), the supplier came in 14th out of 35 energy providers.

2019 saw Tonik drop in the rankings from 2018, where it came in 4th out of 30, but it still remained well above the major suppliers. The slight drop might be explained by the extra 5 suppliers added to the rankings that year and hints that the energy company had things to work on to keep up with those at the top of the list.