Demands for suppliers

I was very interested to read Tony Cohen’s article in April’s CM (‘Empower your power supply’). Everything he says is of course correct: supply the correct information in plenty of time, and don’t make unreasonable demands. It is a breath of fresh air to find the head of operations of a utility supplier interested in building good relations with contractors or developers. I hope I will notice how easy it is to deal with EDF.

Forgive me if I am a little cynical, but I have been dealing with service companies since we used to just have ‘The Gas Board’ and the ‘Electric Board’. Over the years there has been of privatisation, mergers, take-overs, and following these a continual round of restructuring. It is increasingly frustrating to spend hours in the phone, pressing option 1, option 4, option 3 then being held in a queue, then talking to a polite operator in a call centre who hasn’t the faintest clue, who then transfers you to the ‘right department’ who aren’t, who then transfer you to another department who don’t answer...

Service companies need to have a single point of contact for all new works in each area for mains, supplies inspections and meters. These liaison officers need to understand the area and the work and be in contact with their opposite numbers in the other utilities, the highways authority and the local authority. How often is the same trench (or road) dug up two or three times on the same development because it is too difficult to coordinate separate service companies?

The industry, through the CIOB, needs to put pressure on service companies to provide us with an efficient service.