Since September 1998, when competition was extended to residential electricity and gas customers, we have built an impressive UK-wide customer base from 3.5 million to around 5.2 million customers.

In 2001, we introduced a business transformation programme that has helped to deliver increased payment by direct debit and reduced customer churn rates, in addition to more cost effective billing, debt management and customer registration. We have introduced  key metering technology that allows us to communicate with meters electronically. This combined with improved pre-payment methods, will allow us to improve our billing performance.

Key challenges include improving working capital management and reducing customer complaints whilst focusing on gaining profitable customers.

Our key operational objectives for the Energy Retail business are:

• World Class Health & Safety
  preventing accidents from happening
• Drive for 100% Account Accuracy 
  increasing the quality of data held on a customer account
• Four out of Five Calls Resolved First Time
  taking full ownership to resolve customer enquiries satisfactorily
• 3 Million Direct Debits
  ensure all our customers have appropriate payment arrangements, helping them manage their accounts whilst improving our debt and cashflow
• Increase Customer Satisfaction
  becoming recognised as the best in our field for customer service
• Place To Be
  working together as one team, with one approach