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Complaints procedure for electricity customers
If you are dissatisfied with the Electricity North West distribution service, please contact us. The following information tells you how and where to complain and how we will deal with your complaint.
What is a complaint?
A complaint is any report of dissatisfaction with the service you are getting or trying to get from us.
Who can complain?
Anyone who is getting or trying to get a service from us, or anyone acting on their behalf, can complain. You don't have to be one of our customers to complain.
To make a complaint
If you have a complaint, please telephone us on the numbers below so that we can help as quickly as possible.
You may also write a letter to us at Electricity North West Customer Relations, PO Box 4375, MANCHESTER, M61 0ET or make a complaint in person.
If you make your complaint to a department that does not deal with the service, we will pass your complaint on quickly to the correct one. We will usually do this within one day.
Telephone complaints
You can telephone us with your complaint, please call the relevant telephone number below:
- For complaints regarding loss of supply - 0845 050 0036
- For complaints regarding new connections - 0871 687 0501
We aim to deal with telephone complaints there and then. If we cannot do this we will ring you back within one working day. If we cannot give you a full reply within one working day, we will ask you if would prefer a written reply. If you do, we will send you this within 10 working days of receiving your complaint. If necessary we will pass your complaint to a manager who will try to solve the problem.
Written complaints
We will make sure that someone is responsible for replying to each written complaint that we receive. That person will be responsible for the quality of the reply and for making sure the reply is sent out in time and in your requested format, for example, Braille.
Our aim is to reply to letters of complaint within 10 working days of receiving them. When we reply to you we will give you the name, address and telephone number of the person who is dealing with your complaint. This is so you can contact them if you want more information about the complaint.
We keep a record of customers who have special needs because of age, illness or disability. If we know about your special needs, or if you tell us when you complain, we will take this into account when we investigate your complaint and when we reply to it.
If customers write to us in a language other than English, we will reply in the customer's own language, if possible.
Write to us at Electricity North West Customer Relations, PO Box 4375, MANCHESTER, M61 0ET
Personal visits
If you call at one of our offices you will be able to talk to someone who will listen to your complaint and, wherever possible, sort it out for you. Please bear in mind that it is not always possible to do this at the time of your visit unless you have made an appointment. If they are unable to sort this out for you immediately they will explain what else needs to be done and arrange for someone to contact you with a response within 10 working days of your visit.
We will record details of all the complaints we receive from people who visit our offices.
Dissatisfied customers
If you are not happy with our reply to your complaint you should follow the steps set out in our Complaints Procedure booklet.
Independent review
If you have followed Electricity North West's published complaints procedure and you remain unhappy with the way we have handled your complaint, you may wish to contact the Energy Ombudsman, a free independent service set up to sort out disagreements between electricity companies and their customers. The Energy Ombudsman will accept your complaint if after eight weeks of complaining we haven't resolved your complaint, or if we have written to you to say that we will no longer be handling your complaint and that the complaint is in 'deadlock'.
Energy Ombudsman
Tel: 0845 055 0760
www.energy-ombudsman.org.uk