British Gas Announces Multi-Million Pound Investment in Customer Service

Energy supplier aims to turn negative customer service sentiment around by investing in recruitment, training and new systems.

The UK's biggest energy supplier, British Gas, hasn't been on top of the customer service game as it ranked near the bottom of a satisfaction survey from consumer group Which? earlier this year.

The company came in at a joined number 15 out of the 22 UK gas and energy suppliers surveyed and received a customer score of just 49 per cent.

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And in February The Guardian reported that the gas company lost 368,000 customers in 2014, ending the year with 14.8 million clients, which was previously overstated by 110,000 customers.

All signs point in the direction that customers aren't happy with the service they currently receive from the energy supplier and British Gas has announced plans this week to turn this sentiment around.

A £50 million fund has been created to provide more than 350 new roles in customer service, in addition to additional training for all current customer support staff and implementation of new systems.

Recruitment for the new jobs starts in May and the entire investment will be made over a period of three years.

The training and investments in new systems are aimed at making things easier for customers, for example by reducing call waiting times.

Stephen Beynon, Managing Director British Gas Residential Energy, said: "In a competitive market, we know that our customers value our advice and help with their energy usage, so we're making the investment to get this right."

"By investing in our people and our systems to make things simpler when customers need to contact us, we're addressing issues they have told us to focus on.".