NPower News Update: Restructured Marketing Team

NPower Restructuring

NPower news update: NPower is restructuring its marketing team to incorporate the role of data and digital in hope to improve customer service and trust.

RWE NPower is one of the biggest energy suppliers in Europe. They are currently moving the 120 members of the marketing team to a location within the West Midlands. Here the team will grow to include more digital roles, insights and analytics. They also aim to broaden the skill set of the marketing team beyond traditional commercial marketing techniques by employing a new group of marketers. NPower is trying to rebuild their communication tactics to widen the roles of the public relation team and improve the communication with their bill payers through social networks. There are plans for more frequent and improved quality forums online throughout the year along with other planned events. These will be hosted to try and find potential gaps in the market for NPower to exploit and create new products and services. The company claims to be restructuring their business, at the heart of this process is digital. In the past they have be well known for their focus tactical campaigns, where special offers, low prices and high standards have been the main selling point. However they’re now aiming to produce easy to use content online and within their bills.

News for NPower Customer Services

NPower are set to release a new billing scheme which was announced earlier this month. The new scheme works for two different sets of people skimmers and checkers. It offers all the information the bill payer needs at the top for the skimmers and an in depth analysis further down the page for checkers. This new announcement of rearranging marketing to make life hassle free works well in promoting their new billing method. The new marketing will also show off the new tariff line up which has been reduced from seven to four. Both new initiatives that are being promoted are designed to reduce hassle and make NPower the number one customer service provider by 2015. The reduction in tariffs is mainly down to the new government program which prevents energy companies from offering more than four tariffs and requires for customers to be automatically moved to the cheapest, which can be altered at the customer’s discretion. The major six energy firms have already made the switch. For NPower it helps to improve customer satisfaction and moves them closer to achieving their goal of being number one of customer service within the coming year. To call the NPower customer service department, click on the link. For all other news updates and recent articles, visit the News Feed.

NPower News Update: Last Day of Power Station

NPower News Update: 13th August 2013 marks the last day of electricity generation at the Tilbury B Power station ending 46 years of successful operations.

The closure of the Tilbury B Station also marks the end of a combined total of 57 years of electricity generation on the Tilbury Site. The Tilbury B Power Station has played a vital role in the UK electricity production throughout the years since its opening in 1967. When opened the power station started as a 1,467MW coal-fired power plant. The station quickly established links with members of the community and throughout its life has contributed millions of pounds to the UK’s economy. From the power plants first day till now it has produced a huge total of 168.8TWh to power, homes, businesses, street lights and much more around the UK. The amount of power produced could keep just over 3 Billion light bulbs on for over a year. Tilbury B Power Station was forecast to close under the EU’s ‘Large Combustion Plant Detective’ (LCPD), giving the station only 20,000 hours of operation from 1 January 2008. In 2011 Tilbury commenced generation on 100% sustainable biomass, which as the time was a world first, for the remainder of the 20,000 hours allowed by the LCPD. This feat was even more impressive as the Station had spent the last 40 years running on coal alone. The permitted hours will run out on the 13th August 2013 at 12pm.

In 2010 the decision was made by the RWE to switch from coal to 100% biomass. The station after much consideration switched to wood biomass. Since this switch was made the Tilbury B Power Station has produced more than 10% of the UK’s total renewable energy making a significant contribution to providing low cost, low carbon energy. This was achieved by using the plants 750MW capacity for green energy. There was a second phase to this project; to provide the plant with another 10-12 years of life. To achieve this, the plant must be closed under the legislation of the LCPD and under go full redevelopment to convert the whole station to run on biomass to meet new and increasing high environmental standards. If everything went as planned for this second stage the plant would have been up and running again in roughly two years time. Unfortunately the Department for Energy and Climate Change has deemed this project ineligible and therefore the project cannot proceed. The Tilbury site itself remains an excellent power source for the UK and promises more to come in ways of power and biomass use in the near future.

For more information on NPower and regular updates please visit our website at http://www.customerservicescontact.co.uk/npower-phone-number/. News stories can also be found at http://www.customerservicescontact.co.uk/news

British Gas to Offer 'Free Electricity Saturdays'

In a radical move to reduce the strain on the national power grid through the week, British Gas have announced that they will be offering free electricity on Saturdays. Centrica, British Gas’ parent company, have already trialled this scheme in America could please everyone by cutting carbon emissions as well as benefitting the poorest families.

“He also said large businesses should be paid to ration their electricity usage on weekdays as a cheaper solution to a looming energy crunch than building new power plants that would only run ‘for a few hours a year’.

The 'free electricity Saturdays’ plan would require customers to have 'smart meters’, which send automatic usage readings back to the company. British Gas has installed 1m smart meters in UK homes and businesses to date.

Mr Laidlaw faced questions from analysts over whether the tariff would be seen as irresponsible by encouraging higher usage at a time when ministers are attempting to cut carbon emissions. ‘We will think very carefully about how we launch it [in the UK],’ he said.

However he insisted it would not necessarily lead to a rise in consumption, rather encouraging consumers to shift the timing of electricity-intensive activities. This could reduce the need to fire up extra power plants to meet demand on weekdays and reduce carbon emissions overall, he said.

Centrica's US business Direct Energy already offers the tariff to customers in the north-east US and is rolling out the tariff in Texas.

It hopes ‘ultimately’ to be able to offer it in the UK. ‘We are some distance away from getting all the systems in place,’ he told the Telegraph. ‘We want to see how well it works in Texas.’

The tariff could be launched mid-2014, Centrica said.

In the US customers enjoying ‘free’ electricity on Saturdays also face higher charges the rest of the time. However, Mr Laidlaw said consumers stood to benefit and it tended to be ‘low income high consuming families that take advantage of this, which is socially progressive not regressive’.

Mr Laidlaw was speaking as Centrica revealed a 9pc rise in half-year adjusted operating profits, to £1.58bn, as increased earnings from British Gas and gas storage and production offset falling profits from power plants.

[…]

Mr Laidlaw echoed recent warnings over possible power shortages as old plants close, saying there was a risk ‘if there are further plant closures without new investment’. However, he said ‘we should recognise that the risk is probably for a few hours a year’.

‘If there are ways in which we can work on demand response then... that can be a much more cost effective way of solving the security of supply situation than building a lot of plant that’s only going to run for a few hours a year,’ he said.

In June ministers courted controversy by backing a National Grid to pay large businesses to switch off between 4pm and 8pm on weeknights.

But Mr Laidlaw said the plan was sensible and the Hess energy supply business in America, which Centrica agreed to buy in a $1bn deal on Tuesday, already operated a similar scheme where customers who wish to ‘receive an additional incentive not to take power at certain times of the day’.

However, he criticised a parallel National Grid plan to pay companies to keep running power plants they would otherwise mothball. Mr Laidlaw said ministers should instead bring forward the introduction of a new system of capacity auctions that are not due to start making payments until 2018. ‘Having two forms of capacity mechanism, one for the short term and one for the long term, is a very complex way of doing it and may result in unintended consequences,’ he warned.

Mr Laidlaw said all Centrica’s potential UK power plant investments were on hold ‘waiting on subsidies’. A proposed £2bn offshore wind farm that it had hoped to take an investment decision this year was now caught up in a policy backlog awaiting confirmation of subsidies until the end of the year, and EU state aid clearance.

Mr Laidlaw said it would be ‘prudent’ for ministers to offer subsidies to encourage more gas storage, such as Centrica’s planned £1.4bn Baird project, as an ‘insurance policy’ to prevent the kinds of spikes seen in the March cold spell when storage levels fell ‘uncomfortably low’.

‘The risk is that if you have a situation where you are struggling for security of supply, you have to pay the highest price in the world to bring LNG to the UK. That could mean very significant additional costs on customer bills,’ he said.”

This article was originally sourced from The Telegraph.

If you are interested in any of the services British Gas offer, contact their customer services department using the number listed on the following link http://www.customerservicescontact.co.uk/british-gas-telephone-number/. You can find more information on customer services on our Ezine page.

British Gas Urged to Leave Prices Still

Utilities company British Gas are being pushed towards firming up their energy bills for the coming winter. Centrica, the company’s owner, reported a rise in profits last year but will not be making plans in either direction any time soon.

“Centrica's chief financial officer Nick Luff would not rule out a price rise as he warned that British Gas is under pressure from environmental levies and volatile prices on the wholesale gas market.

"What I can do is assure you that we will keep our prices as low as we can. It is in our interests to have competitive prices, we want to attract new customers, and if prices do have to go up we will delay that for as long as possible."

Centrica - which hiked prices by 6% last November - reported a 9% increase in profits to £1.58bn for the first six months of the year for its entire business spanning power generation and supply. Profits in the residential arm of British Gas rose 3% to £356m from £345m, as the company reported that gas consumption was 13% higher per customer during the cold weather.

British Gas prompted widespread criticism with last year's price increase, which added £80 a year to the average dual-fuel customer's bill. The company, which serves 10m households, promised in May it would use its profits to keep prices down, but has refused to put a date on the duration of this price pledge.

Consumer groups urged British Gas to freeze energy bills for the rest of the year. Tom Lyon at uSwitch.com, said: "The fact that British Gas has absorbed increasing costs so far this year will be of cold comfort to consumers who may be fearing the worst – especially with rumours of price rises. Profits are up from last year, so we would urge British Gas to help quell customer's fears and go one step further from its May pledge and commit to a price freeze for the rest of the year."

"People are already starting to worry about next winter and the cost of their energy bills and high energy prices have a big impact on consumers. Last winter, almost seven in 10 (69%) households went without heating at some point to keep their energy costs down."

Centrica blamed "volatile" prices on the wholesale gas market and "environmental costs" for adding to price pressures on the business.

Wholesale gas prices accounted for 48% (£568) of the average annual gas and electricity bill of £1,188 for Centrica's customers in 2012.

Prices in the wholesale gas market were 10% higher than this time last year, said energy trader Gary Hornby at Inenco. "If there is another cold winter and we have another supply situation that we did last time there is a good chance that prices will unfortunately go up," he said. "If we have a mild winter it could go the other way."

Richard Hall, head of energy regulation at Consumer Futures, warned that the big energy companies were not giving consumers the full story about their costs. Large energy suppliers had a tendency to "cherry-pick" dates to make the case that high wholesale gas prices were pushing up prices. "It doesn't appear there is so much pressure on the wholesale market that it can justifiably be used as threat of justifying price rises." Although gas prices hit record highs in March, these on-the-day spikes were dampened out by later price falls, he added.

Centrica's profit report comes after an influential committee of MPs said it was not surprising that customers mistrusted energy companies because they had failed to be transparent about the reasons for energy price rises, in an energy market that was not as competitive as it could be.

Luff dismissed the charge of cherry-picking data: "Despite what you hear about the industry we could not be more transparent ... If by some way gas prices were running at half the price we were saying we would suddenly make a lot more profit.’”

If you are a new or existing British Gas customer and are interested in finding out more about the products and services they offer, contact them directly using the British Gas contact number. You can also remain up to date with all British Gas news via the following link http://www.customerservicescontact.co.uk/news/british-gas-news-update-price-scandal/.

This article was originally sourced from The Guardian.

Dyson Produce Mop-Vacuum Hybrid

Dyson are taking another innovative step in the battle to efficiently keep dust and dirt at bay; they have created a mop-vacuum hybrid called the Hard DC56.

“The latest in the Dyson canon of products is the Hard DC56 vacuum cleaner, and it’s a lot like the company itself: Self-cleaning and technically way ahead of the curve. The Dyson style is to tackle a specific user pain point--whether it’s in cleaning the home or the hands--and offer a more streamlined alternative. The Hard DC56 is here to change the way we clean hard floors, making it a one-tool, one-tiered tidy solution.

‘Cleaning hard floors is a problem because you have to vacuum the dust and debris first,’ James Dyson tells Co.Design. ‘And then whatever you use to get the grime, whether it’s a bucket or a mop, that’s a separate machine. It’s a pain of a process.’

The Hard DC56 is a powerful vacuum and mop all in one: It suctions up the spilled coffee grinds then gives the floor a thorough wipe down two seconds later. Sure it has something in common with the rhymes-with-Differ; it uses the same disposable wipes to clean tiles and wood surfaces. But it wouldn’t be a Dyson product if it didn’t feature some serious tech to wipe the floor with the competition. Like the company’s Airblade Tap, the hand washer-and-dryer designed for public restrooms, the Hard features the company’s squeaky-clean star of tech innovations: The digital motor.

In February Dyson announced the opening of an $80 million factory in Singapore, equipped with a production line of 55 million robots to make the motors. Older motors used copper switches and brushes to create a current, but around 30,000 rpm they hit a ceiling. By comparison, Dyson motors use chip-operated magnets that can operate upwards of 104,000 rpm. ‘You might ask, why do you want to go faster?’ Dyson says. ‘The faster you go, the more efficient it becomes, and the lighter it becomes, and the less material you can use.’

For the Hard vacuum cleaner, that translates into a fast dual-function tool with no cords (a common Dyson feature). But more important, it’s one of the early fruits of more than seven years of work done by Dyson to perfect the motor. ‘The motor is the key to so much,” he says. “If you have a motor that’s much smaller and more efficient and lighter than anybody else, suddenly products become so much more interesting. They become more powerful.’”

Dyson have forged a name for themselves in terms of innovative and extremely effective cleaning products and the Hard DC56 is no exception. If you are interested in reading more about the products Dyson produce, Click Here. Also, if you are looking to upgrade your current Dyson machine or getting your first one, contact their customer service department via the Dyson helpline.

This article was originally found at http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672997/pail-fire-this-new-dyson-vacuum-is-also-a-mop

Utilities Customer Service

There are certain aspects of life that are necessary but undesired, utilities are one of these! There are no two ways of looking at it, every household needs utilities but dealing with these companies is a nightmare for most people. The news are always reporting the most recent scandal or price increase coming from the utilities companies and this causes a fever among customers and a stigma around the companies that they are not delivering the best service possible.

Excusing the pun, there is no smoke without fire and this stigma has been built on a foundation of truth but as with banks and supermarkets, there is a constant struggle between supply and demand. There is a market for these establishments because there is a demand for them and there is competition because of the same reason; if the whole of society needs something there is not only room for more than one company but the customers also want choice, it is basic human intelligence that insists upon options. However, companies are expanding to such an extent that customers are now offered all of life’s necessities in one place – often with the option of a discount for using one company for more than one product.

This means that utilities companies are often associated with other amenities such as groceries or insurance but a common dilemma customers face includes running the risk of compromising on the level of customer service because the company are preoccupied with other products and services. Utilities are a necessity but this does not mean that service can compromised; if anything it would be in the company’s best interests to offer exceptionally high service because while the product is not optional the other services offered by the same company (for instance) are. Customers are far more likely to take the company up on the offer of an additional product or service if they receive very high customer care for the product they are already receiving.

These companies must ensure that they listen to their customers and offer them the best possible deals. This way they will retain current customers and draw in new customers simultaneously. It is proven that customer service is one of the major factors that customers take into account when looking at companies and when it’s an essential service, customers are more inclined to enter into contracts with those companies willing to go the extra mile as it were. Good customer service is easy to deliver – the assistants simply need to listen, acknowledge, respond and solve. The final stage may simply be acknowledgement of a problem but it is still crucial that customers know that the company is aware of their problem or issue, at the absolute minimum.

For more information on utilities companies and the products and services they offer, speak with the British Gas customer services team.