Utility Warehouse (2022) review: One of the best suppliers
Great customer service from a supplier offering more than just energy in one bill but value can be hard to judge
Pros
- Offers multiple home services, which can simplify your household bills
- Low numbers of complaints that are resolved quickly
Cons
- Bills can be tricky to understand
Launched in 2002, Utility Warehouse now has more than 700,000 customers. It’s one of Britain’s medium-sized energy suppliers, with a share of 2% of the home electricity market and 2% for gas.
As well as energy, Utility Warehouse offers broadband, mobile phone services, home insurance and a prepaid cashback card that rewards you for spending with it by giving you money off your Utility Warehouse bill. All your home services are bundled together into one bill.
It says its variable energy tariff will always be cheaper than the government’s Energy Price Guarantee and gives you a discount of 5% on your energy bill if you switch two or three other services to Utility Warehouse too, but whether you can actually save will depend on how the cost of these other services compares to what you would pay elsewhere.
Utility Warehouse has an unusual business model where you can sign up as a “Partner” and earn money by recommending the supplier to people who then switch to it. You get a customer bonus when you sign someone up and then an ongoing percentage of their monthly bill.
It performed well in the Expert Reviews Energy Awards 2022, coming second and receiving highly commended awards in three of the award categories. In our survey conducted in partnership with YouGov, 62% of its customers said they would recommend it to a friend. Only the overall winner Octopus Energy beat this with 72%.
Utility Warehouse (2022) review: Customer satisfaction and complaints
Customer service
Utility Warehouse was highly commended for its customer service in our awards. Some 52% of customers said they were very or fairly satisfied with it, including 30% who said they were very satisfied. This was still a way behind the top provider Octopus, which had 69% of customers saying they were satisfied.
Value for money
It was also well rated for its value for money, with 40% of customers saying they were very or fairly satisfied. Of these customers, 24% said they were very satisfied – the highest percentage for this in our survey. This compares to 53% satisfied for the top supplier, Octopus, of which 21% were very satisfied.
However, more customers answered ‘don’t know’ to this question than for any other supplier at 13%, which suggests it can be hard to determine how much value you’re getting when you have multiple services supplied by one provider.
Clarity of bills
Bills was one area where Utility Warehouse performed poorly, with the lowest percentage of customers who said their last bill was very or fairly easy to understand at 59%. This compares to 86% for Octopus and 76% for the second-best supplier Bulb Energy. Again, this could be because bills can include multiple services, and this is potentially borne out by the fact that 30% of respondents answered ‘don’t know’ to this question.
Complaints
Utility Warehouse has an excellent record on complaints, according to the latest data from the energy regulator Ofgem for the second quarter of 2022.
It had the second lowest number of complaints per 100,000 customer accounts of all the suppliers in our survey at 743 – the lowest was 662, received by Octopus – and had the best results for resolving them, with 82% resolved by the end of the next working day and 100% resolved within eight weeks.
Ofgem complaints data
| Complaints per 100,000 customer accounts | Industry average complaints per 100,000 customer accounts | Complaints resolved by end of next working day | Complaints resolved within eight weeks |
| 743 | 1,398 | 82% | 100% |
Notes: Data is for the second quarter of 2022.
Along with customer satisfaction and complaints, we normally evaluate energy suppliers’ tariffs but as you can’t currently save money by switching from your supplier’s standard variable tariff, which in most cases will be set at the level of the Energy Price Guarantee from 1 October, comparing suppliers on price is no longer possible.
Utility Warehouse (2022) review: Verdict
Utility Warehouse has great customer service and value for money compared to other suppliers according to our survey, and receives low numbers of complaints that it resolves speedily.
However, it seems that it can be difficult for some customers to understand their bills and work out exactly how much value they’re getting because they receive other services from the supplier along with their energy.
