The watchdog’s boss Dermot Nolan seems keen to establish himself as the bad boy in regulation street, and has warned that npower will be banned from taking on new customers if it doesn’t shape up.
That might — might — just wake RWE and npower up.
But let’s look at those targets it has to meet to avoid that, shall we?
The number of late bills over six months old is going to have to go down by two-thirds and that sounds like a dramatic improvement until you realise that npower will still get a passing grade if 15,000 of them remain after that.
The number of complaints over 56 days old will have to be halved. After which there will still be 4500.
"Npower is being told to transform itself from awful, to just plain bad."
<p>James Moore</p>
The flow of new Ombudsman cases is expected to fall by 40%. But they will still be left running at 600 per month.
In other words, npower is being told to transform itself from awful, to just plain bad.
And, really, it’s the same for the wider market. A recent Which? survey of 100 big consumer brands rated the sector as rock bottom in terms of its customer service. Npower was not even the worst of the bunch.
To change that, Nolan will need to do more than bare his teeth like he did this morning.
