According to new research, more than 70% of homeowners are left confused by their household bills

A recent survey carried out by the customer service experts at Echo Managed Services, found that more than 70% of homeowners in the UK struggled to understand their heating and boiler bills.

As part of the survey, Echo MS questioned 1,000 adults living in Britain. The purpose of the survey was to uncover what homeowners thought about household bills. It also revealed the way in which energy and service providers dealt with the presentation on these bills.

According to the study, seven in ten people were left totally confused over the jargon these companies used on their bills and how the information is presented.

Around 30% of people would like to see a more simplistic approach to bills.

Around 24% of those polled said they had in the past struggled to understand their bills.

Confusing terms

The 1,000 homeowners who took part in the research, said that terms such as ‘chargeable value’, ‘tariff information label’ and ‘tariff comparison rate’, made absolutely no sense to them and left them feeling even more confused.

Of those people surveyed, 78% said they didn’t know what ‘tariff comparison rate’ meant. 72% had no idea what the other two billing terms meant either.

Some more confusing billing terms include, ‘exit fees’, ‘assumed annual consumption’ and ‘unit rate’.

Echo MS believe that by creating such complicated and confusing bills, the companies were putting themselves at a real disadvantage. Using confusing jargon alienates their customers and leaves the customer feeling not only confused, but let down by these companies.

A debt risk?

The service experts discovered that complicated and confusing household bills can lead to homeowners falling into debt. According to information gathered, 36% of incidents involving late payments, or non payments, were the result of an issue with billing.

The managing director of Echo Managed Services, Mr Nigel Barker, believes that companies need to make improvements to their current billing practices. The information in this new research could help them to make changes. The move could have very positive results, paying dividends for both the company and its customers.

According to Mr Barker, making simple changes to the way these companies communicate the information to their customers would help immensely. It would reduce the likelihood of customer debt and confusion in particular. As a result, it would improve the billing experience and increase customer loyalty.

Contact Warm for help

Warm.co.uk can help you to find a registered engineer who can advise you. They’ll be able to help you manage your heating and boiler bills better. You can reach us on 0800 311 8990 to speak to a member of our team.