Maybe it’s where I live, but we do get an awful lot of door to door sales (as well as illicit cold phone calls). Reading this article in the Times spurred me to write here. As in the Times article, I have had Talk Talk around trying to get me to sign up wit them, but I find Southern Electric a much worse culprit.
Only this weekend a man with braces (on his teeth) came knocking on my door. He started by telling me that I was paying too much for my electricity and that Southern Electric ‘supply’ the power to my home (which I know is not true, it’s EDF who maintain the infrastructure around here), which means that they can give me cheaper electricity. Apparently he had a ‘special’ deal for people in the area. I told him I wasn’t interested, not wanting to enter into discussion. He then persisted to ask me if he could have a look at my meter. ‘No!’ I told him, ‘Why not? We own it!’, he said. This is a blatant lie, it was British gas who came to fit a new meter recently, and it clearly states on it ‘Property of Capital Meters Ltd’. And even Capital Meters couldn’t just turn up on my doorstep to look at the meter. So I told him that he couldn’t come in whether he owned it or not, and sent him on his way.
In the past Southern Electric have used other tactics, like telling me nothing will change when I switch providers (yes it will, my money will go to someone else, and probably in different quantities), and that I should compare prices after I have signed up with them (before would be more sensible). What concerns me is that a more vulnerable person could be trampled all over by salespeople like this. My advice: Never sign up to anything from cold caller, tell them you’re not interested. If you want a better deal, do the comparisons in your own time.
look poeple all these sales reps who dont know how to sell end up geting into stupid arguments with customers which is realy wasting they time, the customer jus needs to say they are vary happy with they current arangements and they would be left alone, in sales as a rule you take three no’s before you move on, now if you think a sales rep is lieing to you, you can phone they company up wit they badge number and comfirm the truth, if you hav been miss qouted you should of seen the price and compare them with your triff, if you are too stupid to be able to do this then dont complain about door to door sales poeple they are making a living just like you do, dont listen to all these poeple who tell you to ignor sales poeple they dont pay your bills, so everybody talk for your self, remember if a company is more expensive they wont talk much about the unit prices, remember any company who is not local to would give a better deal then your local one, and all this crap about british company is rubbish the british owners would not give you any profits they make and being british does not make them cheeper or better all the companies invest and run oprations from the uk.
Hey,
I work for Southern in the “door to door” sales team.
This individual should not be aloud to represent the company, at all.
He is going against everything we were taught before knocking in an intense training course, and if reported Southern will have absolutely NO hesitation to say goodbye to him, remove his energy sure license and make sure he will never be selling gas and electricity for any company again.
I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience, but with the new regulations you can feel alot more trust in the industry not lying to you.
Love how the Southern chap cant even spell allowed
Oh yes, like your bad grammar starting a sentence with ‘Love’ ? I’m a District Sales Manager too, please don’t tar us all with the same brush either. The majority of people we respectfully engage with on the door are pleasant and willing to discuss their energy requirements, however there is a small minority of people who spend too much time indoors watching Watchdog, reading the Daily Mail and playing round on price comparison sites who seem to think they know everything about the domestic energy market! I find such specimens of society amusing and they brighten up my day at least! Isn’t it funny how people shop around for cheaper car insurance? cheaper flights? cheaper petrol etc etc, but when a polite and courteous person comes to your door offering to see if they can save you money on your energy bills, why is it they are treated by the weak minded with such disdain? To be honest, i couldn’t care less, the people who grumble are in such a minutia of a minority of self-important whiners. So there you go.
I just had a rep at the door. He asked me who supplied my electricity (which started alarm bells ringing) then said that E.on buy the electricity from Southern Electric and sell it to me. I could cut out the middleman and buy direct cheaper. It didn’t sound right so I told him I wouldn’t sign anything on-the-spot. He asked if he could show me a comparison to show how much I could save. I said yes and he marched into the hallway. I then said I was busy and had changed my mind – I showed him out!
We just had one of those guys come to the door five minutes ago. I had to immediately look online to see if anyone else had heard of these guys.
As said above, this guy told us that we already get our electricity from them. It sounded like a scam, so we turned him away. Checking on here, I can see I was right!
Hi,
I am a long standing Southern Electric emplyee, i am one of the Area Sales Managers, and i can, without hesitation tell you that in 99.9% of cases, we are guarenteed to be cheaper than your current supplier. Not only that, we have the best customer service record in the UK without a doubt (independant audit), and being the ONLY TRUELY BRITISH ENERGY SUPPLIER left in the market, we have allot more to offer the customer than just saveings.
ALL of us are trained to use an OFGEM (office of gas and electric markets) and ENERGYSURE approved script, we are all asked to pass an energysure test before we are allowed to knock on doors, after which, a newstarter will be mentored for no less than 3 days with an experienced rep to ensure he knows how to conduct himself professionally and work bills and tarrifs out properly.
I am a realist, there are a few unethical reps out there, but we weed them out very quickly with zero tolerance on por ethics.
Those of you who have a tainted view on door to door sales people or don’t like them calling, are too ignorant to realise that we are there to help you, and at the end of the day, knowledge is power, and even if you don’t sign up, give us the time of day and we are guarenteed to inform you of at least one thing that could aid you.
Lastly, under new laws, if any of our agents call on you, check their credentials by ringing the number on their badge, make sure they give you a WRITTEN estimation and make sure you know what prices you are being quoted.
We arent all criminals, and i have never had personal complaints ans have less than 2% cancellations to business written. Give us the time of day, but be sure our agents are legitimate.
re Billy:
i work in winback for eon and im not saying our reps are saints but your field sales reps are the worst!
customers up and down the country being told that you supply the electricity to us and we sell it on to the customers!!! come off it!
they pressure alot of old people into signing up to southern as they claim to have benefits for the older generation. not true!
also for being only british company left… we were told they are french and american owned.
I don’t comment on SPG as a rule, Billy, but I have to say that considering you’re an Area Sales Manager your spelling is appalling. Did you not think about at least proofreading that? The sad thing is I want to believe you. Only just this afternoon I’ve had an encounter with another of your sales people with whom I’m afraid I was rather short. I didn’t even give him the chance to get into his patter; I just asked him to leave, to not waste my time and to close the gate behind him.
My wife told me I was a bit rude to him, and she was probably right, but the fact is that in the past we’ve experienced extremely underhand sales tactics at the hands of Southern Electric. He may, as she said, have only been doing his job (and I daresay they said the same thing at Nuremberg) but the ‘job’ as I’ve experienced it is to acquire customers by means of manipulation, deception, intimidation and in some cases borderline blackmail. The wealth of online complaints about S.E. at the expense of all other suppliers cannot be a coincidence, and I’m afraid that I’ve had too many encounters with unscrupulous salesmen to believe your claims of “zero tolerance on por ethics”.
I realise that you are simply representing your company, but the passive-aggressive stance in that post – as well as the aforementioned spelling – only reinforces my already low opinion of your company. Your sales team need to learn that no means no – and if their militant tactics are the result of some sort of insane commission-based pressure from on high (as I suspect it might be) then there is something very wrong within the Southern Electric infrastructure. Your rates may be low, and you may indeed have something genuine to offer, but that’s no excuse for poor manners. I should know: I’m wallowing in shame at my own.
Well I was visited by a guy from Southern Electric, the prices seemed good. I told him to come back tomorrow after I had spoken to my partner, we decided to change to them but he never came back !
My father had a gas leak over the weekend and a chap turned up at his door saying the neighbours had complained about it. He asked if he was the engineer and he was told he was much, much higher than that: he was the district manager. The chap then gained my father’s trust, until he started saying that British Gas doesn’t exist and that it’s actually Centrica based in India. Then came the spiel about Southern Electric being the cheapest. I find it disgusting that they have to resort to these tactics to prey on the elderly. For 10 mins he made out he was a manager for British Gas! (This was in the Derbyshire area and trading standards have been informed so please be vigilant)
Help is at hand people. There is a company who can put a stop to these annoying door to door reps. Find them on facebook ‘the Electric Stig’
or just click my name
I am a new employee of SSE and seriously without any doubt this is a best company to work with. I just make some comparisons and signs up the customers.
billy says that southern are 99.9% cheeper than your current supplier, this is rubbish. It will depend on how much you use, how you pay, where you are in the country. for example southern are not the cheepest for the avg consumer as set by ofgem in the Manweb area paying by DD with df, southern would be 3.1% more expensiv than edf and also e-on and british gas are bith cheeper to. Southern are awfull misssellers
I get sales reps from southern electric come around periodically… They always come during the day when most people would be working and are usually quite surprised to see me (late 20s, male) answer the door. It’s clear that they are hoping to catch vulnerable pensioners and the like.
They also tend to be rather persistent, ringing the bell multiple times or banging on the door very loudly.
I work from home most of the time, so i’m usually around when they (and other similar people) call…
I really do not appreciate being disturbed by anything that demands my immediate attention (telephone calls, callers at the door) and they always try to pressure you into signing up for something on the spot. It’s my experience that if someone is trying to pressure you into signing up on the spot, they usually aren’t offering a very good deal or they would be perfectly happy to let you think it over and do your own comparisons.
If i want to change my electricity (or anything else) supplier i will do the shopping around myself. I will not buy anything where i’m put on the spot, and really don’t appreciate anyone demanding i drop what i’m doing to listen to their sales patter.
there are so many scams running on the internete so watch out.’`
I totally agree with Bert (30/06/10) I really do not care if the bills work out cheaper with Southern Electricity when I have come home from working nights fallen asleep on the sofa and some silly fast talking salesman knocks on my front door offering advice about something I had not requested
advice about.
RE: Billy
Is this man dillusional?????? I have been doorstep selling since it started working for southern electric in the days when they made the sales reps dress like meter readers and learn a script word perfectly before they went on the door..the same script i believe they use now..it goes something like “it appears you qualify for reductions on your gas and electric but haven’t yet applied for them, any reason you wouldn’t want the reductions at all?”.
Southern are the worst door knockers in the industry mainly due to there crap commision and hard sell tactics..yes usually they have a price message however it does’nt always beat everyone. my tip is avoid like the plague..unless you live in the north east as my company is cheaper so sign up and i’ll save you money later lol
I am a southern electric doorstep salesman. I have held this position for just over a month. I get a real buzz from saving elderly people money when they have been mis-sold gas & electric by other suppliers.I get sick of people treating me like the scum of the earth, when all i’m trying to do is pay the bills & the mortgage. If I dont make 15 sales in a week, I don’t get any comission at all, If I don’t make 20 sales a week, I may lose my job. Is it any wonder that southern, if not all energy salesmen, use underhand tactics to make comission when they are under that kind of pressure to perform. Ultimately, if there is anyone to blame for pressure sales, it’s the management of the sales team, who are answerable to the board of directors. In a fairer system, we would get comission on all sales that we make, not just those above the threshold. But the board of directors want us to sign up a certain number of customers every week. And so we have the situation as it is. An almost unbearable job with unsociable hours & a sales force driven by the neccessity to hit targets based on the greed of their masters. Personally, I can’t wait to get out of this business.
How many field sales people do EON employ
What are your kpi’s ? The chap before said 20 sales and you will loose your job so what are you bechmarked / targetted to do ?
What is the norm sales conversion rates
Exactly the same happened to me. The salesperson spouted blatant untruths about my metre being faulty in exactly the same was as the poster explained. So Mr Southern Electric Representative – your company is obviously training your salesman to deceive people in a systematic way. I feel sorry for these poor salespeople forced to lie to earn a crust – I was annoyed at being lied to and expressed this to the person but it’s the management who should be ashamed. I will never use Southern Electric as these underhand tactic must be endemic in all areas of the company. I judge companies on the first contact if they can’t be bothered to be honest at the outset why should I believe they will be after this.
My wife was confronted by Mr Southern Electric Bullying Representative today, he was sent off with a flea in his ear. My wife however was somewhat disturbed by his attitude and tactics he was using. So to all you guys who represent Southern Electric, and particularly you Billy, people like us are not ignorant, we just don’t like trumped up little bullies telling us we have to buy from you when we don’t want to. Also to suggest you have good customer service leaves me stunned, using aggresion to get business isn’t customer friendly now is it? You WON’T ever supply anything to this property my friend.
do you think the salesman really cares if they dont sale to you. theres always someone down the road that wants to save some money… now if i had a polite caller come to my door and he was actually telling me the truth and that he could actually save me some money and prove it … i wouldnt say no ???? and i dont think its right everybody treating them like scum because everyone isnt perfect!!!