lovemoney Awards 2013: best energy supplier

A new category for this year, but who has won the inaugural award?

This year, the lovemoney Awards introduced a new category to find the top energy supplier, given energy is one of our biggest expenses.

Never popular at the best of times, the last 12 months has been an annus horribilis for the energy industry. Accusations of profiteering, fines for mis-selling and missing Government targets, added to yet more price rises all put the big companies under the spotlight again and again.

In these circumstances, it’s perhaps unsurprising that none of the so-called ‘Big Six’ (British Gas, EDF, E.On, npower, SSE and ScottishPower) features anywhere in our lists of top energy suppliers.

Instead, M&S Energy came out on top overall after easily winning both the price and customer service sections, despite its energy being supplied by one of the Big Six – SSE.

However, it’s clear that M&S’s own operation is far more highly thought of than that of its partner.

M&S claims nine out of ten customers are satisfied or very satisfied with its service.

As well as the promise of decent customer service and easy-to-read bills, M&S Energy offers up to £20-worth of M&S vouchers when you switch to one of its tariffs.

Here's a full rundown of the winners and runners-up.

Price

Winner: M&S Energy
Runners-up: Ovo Energy and Co-operative Energy

Although M&S has never consistently featured at the top of lists of cheapest tariffs, it is clearly making its customers feel like they're getting value for money.

Ovo has been far more competitive, while Co-operative Energy competes on two fronts: price and ethical credentials. While the latter may have been called into question at the banking operation that shares its name recently, the energy company is gaining customers.

Customer service

Winner: M&S Energy
Runners-up: Co-operative Energy and Atlantic

M&S lived up to its own hype by easily winning this section. Co-operative was also there or thereabouts again, with Atlantic coming in as joint runner-up. Ironically, Atlantic is part of M&S supplier SSE, so once again it shows that a subsidiary business can perform much better than its parent company (First Direct beating HSBC is another example). Atlantic has won customer service awards in other polls so is clearly doing something right.

What price customer service and clarity?

Our results echo others in that the smaller players come out on top. While they don't always feature in price round-ups they appear to offer a better all-round service. A service that may be worth paying out a few extra pounds for. After all, if something does go wrong with a cheaper but less customer-focused company, you might find the time and stress spent rectifying it wasn't worth the saving.

If you do want to see what the different suppliers charge in your area, try our energy comparison centre.

More on energy:

How to switch energy supplier

The alternatives to the Big Six energy providers

Who owns the UK's big energy companies?

How to complain about your energy supplier