By Rachel Wait
Hot on the heels of a similar move by EDF Energy, British Gas has cut electricity prices by an average of 5% with immediate effect. The move will reduce the average bill by £24.
SSE has swiftly followed suit, announcing it will lower gas prices by 3.8% on 26 March. Although the headline price cut is 4.5%, the company is only cutting the "unit rates" for gas. Once the fixed standing charged is taken into account, the actual reduction passed on to customers is 3.8%.
Yesterday EDF Energy said it would cut gas prices by 5% on 7 February and it's now expected that the remaining big six energy suppliers (Eon, npower and Scottish Power) will also reduce prices.
The wave of price cuts was initiated by small suppliers Co-operative Energy and Ovo Energy, which both recently announced they would be reducing energy bills by 5% and 3% respectively after whole sale prices dropped lower than expected.
The news also comes as Which? has revealed the latest results from its energy satisfaction survey. The results show that small suppliers are "streets ahead" of Britain's six biggest energy suppliers in terms of customer service.
Good Energy was voted the best energy supplier, with an overall satisfaction score of 84%. It was followed by Utility Warehouse (78%), Ecotricity (77%), Ovo Energy (76%) and Ebico (73%).
Npower came bottom in the survey, with an overall satisfaction score of just 41%. EDF Energy (43%), Scottish Power (44%), First Utility (46%), Eon (47%) and British Gas (47%) were not much better, however. Of the six big suppliers, SSE came top with a score of 51%.
Which? research has also revealed that four million complaints were received last year by the big six energy suppliers. What's more, 40% of customers have had a problem with a gas and electricity company in the past two years, such as bill and meter problems, mistakes on bills, missing bills and inaccurate readings.
But if consumers don't complain, they could be missing out on compensation from the energy ombudsman and, according to Which?, the amount of unclaimed payments could be as much as £4 million a year.