Two of the main energy suppliers for the UK, British Gas and Scottish and Southern Energy, have confirmed that they will no longer continue to sell their gas and electricity through unsolicited doorstep sales.
The door to door cold calling sales technique has been criticised for targeting particularly vulnerable people and placing too much pressure on people to sign up to the deals on offer.
Often the best deals available from the companies can only be found on the internet and doorstep salespeople are usually unable to offer them to potential customers.
Earlier this year, government ministers were advised the approximately 40% of all energy contracts that were agreed during a doorstep sale did not give the customer a better deal than they already had.
The Watchdog consumer group have been calling for a ban on the door to door cold calling sales technique. They had previously suggested that companies take a 90 day moratorium on the practice in order to review the technique and discuss possible alternatives. This prompted a number of the main energy suppliers to suspend and review the sale of their utilities through unsolicited visits earlier than planned. British Gas and Scottish and Southern Energy have now become the first to announce an end to the controversial practice.
EDF Energy, who also placed a hold on their doorstep sales earlier this year, have indicated that they are still reviewing the practice. nPower have also confirmed that they are looking at their sales strategies. However, E.ON and Scottish Power have yet to commit to any suspension or cancellation of their door to door cold calling sales.
A spokesperson from British Gas indicated that the staff and customer response to their suspension of unsolicited doorstep calls has been encouraging. However, they suggested that whilst many of their customers prefer to use the internet or their telephone services to purchase gas and electricity, there was still a need for face to face energy advice.
British Gas staff will continue to run events in shopping centres and community centres but will now only visit a potential customers’ homes with their prior agreement, at an arranged time.
The energy supplier hope to move many of their doorstep sales staff into new positions, but they have indicated that there may have to be some redundancies.
Audrey Gallacher, a spokesperson for Consumer Focus, believes that the announcement from British Gas will help to apply pressure on the other main energy firms to suspend or end their existing doorstep sales practices.
Ms Gallacher said: “People feel pressured to switch on the doorstep and thousands have lost out by moving to a worse deal. Energy customers have made it clear that they don’t want or need this type of unwanted sales technique, which ambushes them at their home. We need to see an industry-wide end to cold-call doorstep sales, otherwise continued mis-selling will drive customer distrust even further and trust in key government energy schemes could be damaged.”