Liberalization of electricity and gas: Belgians dissatisfied 25.08.09 - 14:50
Belgian consumers are hardly satisfied with their electricity and gas supplier, two years after the liberalization of these markets. Consumers especially deplore the prices charged by operators.
"They are only 39,6 and 42,1% of Belgians to declare themselves truly satisfied with their electricity and gas suppliers", indicates Test-Achats in a new study.
Since liberalization, 27,6% of consumers have changed electricity supplier and 23,3% have changed gas supplier. "In both cases, the energy price was decisive but the ecological motivation is not negligible: it is the second reason cited by respondents to explain their change of supplier," explains TA.
Respondents especially deplore the prices charged by operators and the "tariff level is judged bad or very bad by 29,9% of electricity customers and 28,3% of gas customers".
Consumers also deplore the opacity of the prices charged. "Lampiris's pricing policy is the best appreciated, ahead of Nuon's. At the other end of the scale, Essent and Electrabel are perceived as charging too high prices and an inconsistent pricing offer. For gas, Nuon and Luminus are the best appreciated in this respect. Electrabel and Essent also bring up the rear here, the first still mainly due to tariffs considered too high and the second because of information problems, lack of transparency and invoicing " , TA continues.
Barely 36% of those polled consider the quality of the services offered by suppliers to be positive and 10% of them also believe that it is very poor. Call centers, points of sale and problem management are mainly questioned by respondents. "For electricity, Lampiris and Nuon are the best appreciated for this criterion, while Electrabel and Essent bring up the rear. For gas, Luminus and Nuon stand out, Lampiris and Essent being at the back of the pack" , finally specifies TA.
The Test-Purchasing survey was carried out between October and November 2008 among 1144 people.
(Belga)
Source: http://www.rtbf.be/info/economie/libera ... its-135529