Customer service

Just a shame your incredible website doesn't work on Firefox or Google Chrome on Ubuntu:
http://www.atlanticeg.co.uk/opening/reading.aspx

on 10 February 2010 18:44:56

Thanks for your comment Richard. We're always working to ensure that our websites can be used by all our customers and our site conforms with the latest W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It has been successfully tested on both Windows and Linux operating systems and is compatible with all popular browsers. I personally use Firefox to access the site quite regularly, without any problems. Is anyone else having problems viewing or using the Atlantic website?

on 12 February 2010 09:09:02

Your incredible website is a mess!
I assume wer'e talking of the idiotic way of submitting readings and contacting you?
If I'm logged in, why do I have to give all the information you already have?
Quite simply it is a mess. A tedious and time consuming mess!
Peter

on 27 February 2010 15:12:38

Thanks for getting in touch Peter. I'm sorry you're having problems with your online account. I'm not sure whether you're specifically having problems with submitting meter readings or using the 'contact us' form on the website. But the form is not part of the log-in area of the website and will always ask you for full details to help us deal with your query.

on 01 March 2010 11:35:40

1. I have been using your website for entering meter readings for a year now. It seems every other month it has problems with my input, can you indicate whether you require just the actual reading, currently mine are all four digits or do you require five. Also could you show the last reading. other companies give a five digit box and you pack with preceeding zeros.

2. You have been promising additional features like consumption history for several months now, are these coming or empty promises.?

3. As I stated in para one I have been using the site and entered monthly meter readings regularly but last October I received an estimated bill, only to be followed within 24 hours by a recalculated bill. The recalculated bill was roughly 40% less than the guess. Good for me but a WASTE of energy and time for the guess.

4. You have changed my billing to six monthly, no warning or notice and I have seen this on comments on a switch site, I phoned up
and was told you could do nothing about this
till after my bill in March. You could not have picked a better winter to catch out your customers and "force" ( sorry "encourage") them into a direct "robbery" ( Sorry "debit") scenario.

5. Finally you brought out a new tariff in January that did not appear on your website, only on switch sites. As I am all ready with you
I could not switch to it. I tried three evenings to phone you but after a total of two hours of being told "all our operatives are busy", and "thank you for your patience" I gave up, another waste of time, energy and my money on the phone bill.

on 28 February 2010 22:02:17

Thanks for your comments John. I'm sorry that you've had problems using the self-service section of our website. We're currently updating all our branded websites with new functionality and a new look and feel to make them easier to use. The additional features we've been promising are also part of the update so you should see the graphs and consumption history charts soon.

In regards to your estimated bill and subsequent rebill, it's impossible to see what happened without knowing your account details, but I can tell you that the system will look for a reading within a certain billing window and it's possible that your reading missed this window. As a result, the estimated bill would be produced, but rebilled when the actual reading was recognised.

We also began migrating all our direct debit customers to 6-monthly billing around 18 months ago, to make sure that each bill should be based on an actual meter reading. There would have been notification of this on your previous bill. You can opt out of 6-monthly billing at any time though, just give us a call and we'll arrange to send your statements quarterly as before.

There is a new fixed price tariff for new customers who join Atlantic. This has only been available through switching websites and not widely publicised. It is a fixed price though, so you risk paying a higher tariff if prices reduce in the meantime. I'm sorry you couldn't get through to speak to us about it on the phone, but you can use the live chat facility or the contact us page on the website if there's anything you'd like to discuss.

Hope this helps and thanks again for your comments.

on 04 March 2010 08:36:55

I have recently switched to Atlantic from EDF. I'm finding logging into my account on your website VERY slow - it has been slow every time I have tried over the last couple of weeks ( have to switch to low graphics mode), and today I can't log in at all - I enter my account login details and the server just hangs. What's going on? (All other websites are working fine, so it's definitely a problem with your servers).

EDF did have a very nice account section on their website, which shows you nice graphs of your energy and gas usage per quarter for this year and last, and estimated total usage for the current year. The Atlantic site seems to be pretty basic in comparison.

on 08 March 2010 17:41:16

I have recently switched to Atlantic from EDF. I'm finding logging into my account on your website VERY slow - it has been slow every time I have tried over the last couple of weeks ( have to switch to low graphics mode), and today I can't log in at all - I enter my account login details and the server just hangs. What's going on? (All other websites are working fine, so it's definitely a problem with your servers).

EDF did have a very nice account section on their website, which shows you nice graphs of your energy and gas usage per quarter for this year and last, and estimated total usage for the current year. The Atlantic site seems to be pretty basic in comparison.

on 08 March 2010 17:42:00

I find it 'incredible' that online account management has been down now for three days.

on 11 March 2010 11:53:58

Thanks for your comments. Over the last week or so we've been changing all our websites, updating the look and feel, the content and the functionality. Whilst we've been doing this it's likely some customers have experienced a slow response. There have been various updates over the last couple of days, and in the next few days we plan to have finished all the changes and our website service will be back to normal. Response times have been improved during the upgrades, so I hope they're better for you now.

In the next few weeks usage graphs will be available too. I'm sorry you've encountered so many issues and I hope you've seen an improvement in the website over the last few days.

If you've got any questions, please get in touch.

on 16 March 2010 08:37:02

I am very unhappy with your website i had an
email saying that my first gas billwas ready online
to view went to the site to read that no accounts
can be seen at the present time .I have no idea
if the meter readings are correct or if my bill
was estimated,can i ask how soon i will see a
bill.

roger miller

on 19 March 2010 17:43:03

Thanks for your comment Roger. As you can see from previous comments, following the recent updates to our websites we have had some problems with the login areas and customers haven't been able to use their online accounts as they would normally. I'm sorry that this has also meant that you can't see your gas bill.

We've made some changes to this area during last week, so you should be able to view your bill now. We're still working on the websites and will continue to do so until normal service is resumed. If you find any more problems in the meantime, please let me know.

on 26 March 2010 08:50:30

How am I to know what your website contains when it is written so small and so feint that I can only see it if I really struggle? (My eyesight has been checked recently)

on 14 May 2010 15:22:39

Thanks for your comment Alfred. The website is designed to meet all the current usability standards for modern websites and the text size is standard throughout our sites.

If you're having problems reading it, you can always change the settings on your web browser. Just go to 'view' and 'text size' and you can make all the text on your page larger.

Hope this helps

Jacqui.

on 24 May 2010 12:01:41

Is anyone there???

Have submitted 3 monthly meter readings now, still waiting for one of them to be taken into account. Also used 'Contact Us' section, again still waiting.

As for the increased functionality promises, you were promising this approx 2 yrs ago, if anything the website experience has went from OK to atrocious, thought about calling however on checking feedback from other customers I have decided against that.

on 14 June 2010 22:35:30

Thanks for your message Steven.

I'm sorry that you haven't had a reply to your messages to us and that we don't appear to have used your meter readings. If you'd like to give me some details I'd be happy to look into this for you. Don't worry, we won't publish your details on the forum.

I'm also sorry that you feel the website experience has not improved, as I can assure you that we've worked hard over the last 18 months to make improvements, add functionality and generally make the website easier to use. The results are clear to see, having jumped from 4th to 1st in the Webcredibles annual 'Energy and Water Supplier Website Usability 2009 report'. But we're still committed to making more improvements and getting the website experience right.

on 23 June 2010 09:10:01