Small suppliers sweep the board

Challenger suppliers have topped an annual customer ranking of energy companies but overall satisfaction has dropped for the first time since 2011.

Octopus Energy took first place for overall customer satisfaction with a score of 96% after being included in the uSwitch.com report for the first time after launching in 2016.

Small suppliers swept the board in the 12th annual ranking, achieving some of the highest scores recorded, while the big six companies languished at the bottom of the table.

However overall satisfaction fell 2.5%, with Scottish Power the only company included in previous surveys to improve its score.

Bulb, another supplier appearing for the first time in the ranking, took second place with a score of 92%, followed by Utility Warehouse.

Ovo Energy, which topped the ranking for the last three years, suffered a 9% drop in its overall score to fall to fourth place.

Npower was the lowestranked supplier for overall customer satisfaction for the 10th consecutive year with a score of 65%. But the firm saw the biggest improvement in customer service with a 4% increase.

The top seven suppliers this year all scored higher than any of the big six have managed previously, the poll of more than 17,000 energy customers by YouGov found.