Customers shiver after energy giant tells staff to stay home
THOUSANDS of British Gas customers shivered in the cold yesterday after its Scottish call centres were left empty and people could not get help with broken boilers.
The company effectively closed down two call centres with only a skeleton staff on duty, because the bad weather made it difficult for people to get to work.
There are reports employees were told to stay at home, meaning customers’ calls went unanswered.
Viv Reitan, 66, who has rheumatoid arthritis and is listed as a priority customer, was unable to reach British Gas, which operates as Scottish Gas north of the Border, at their centres in Glasgow and Edinburgh after her boiler broke at 6am yesterday.
The retired teacher, who lives in Rossendale, Lancashire, was in tears as she spoke about the difficulty of getting through.
She said: ‘It was just appalling. I tried time and again, but even if the call was answered the line went dead.
‘It has been terribly cold. People can die in these circumstances.’
British Gas said its services and call centre had seen a huge spike in demand. A spokesman said: ‘Due to the weather our call centres, while operational, are not fully staffed, leading to considerably higher than normal wait times.
‘There is an emergency in Scotland which means we only have skeleton staff in our Scottish call centres.
‘Colleagues are going above and beyond to help meet customer demand – engineers have voluntarily walked to appointments when it’s unsafe to drive and customer services colleagues have been working overnight in our contact centres to help answer incoming calls.’