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Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSOP)

The Guaranteed Standards of Performance were introduced by Ofgem to ensure that Boost and all other energy suppliers provide an appropriate level of service – and to set out compensation if things go wrong.


Appointments

Booking an appointment

We might need to send an engineer to your home – this might be for a smart meter appointment or because we need to carry out work in line with our responsibilities as your supplier. We’ll always do the following:

  • We’ll always try to arrange the closest possible date for the appointment, at a time that works for you. If it can’t be made straight away, we’ll get in touch within 5 working days to offer you an alternative appointment date.
  • We’ll offer you a 4-hour slot within working hours – these are usually 8am-12pm, 10am-2pm, 12pm-4pm and 2pm-6pm, but this might vary.
  • We’ll make sure that our engineer possesses the necessary skills, experience and resources to complete the appointment.
  • We’ll give you at least 1 working day’s notice if we need to re-arrange an appointment.
  • We’ll keep to our agreed appointment unless it’s re-arranged and we’ve both agreed on a new appointment date.

Should we not do any of the above, we’ll pay you compensation – see Compensation Payments below for more details.

Reconnection

If your supply has been disconnected due to unpaid charges, we’ll help you get back on supply as quickly as possible once those outstanding charges, including reconnection fees and other charges, are paid or a repayment plan is agreed on.

Once that’s happened, we’ll reconnect your supply within 24 hours.

If we don’t reconnect the supply within 24 hours, we’ll pay you compensation – see Compensation Payments below for more details.

Please note, if the request has been made outside of working hours, we will look to reconnect the supply within 24 hours of the start of the next working day.

Prepayment Meters

If you suspect there’s something wrong with your prepayment meter, please don’t try to fix it yourself. You’ll need to let us know as soon as possible about the issue, and we’ll do the following.

If you’ve lost supply:
- We’ll look into the issue either remotely or by visiting your property and get you back on supply within 3 hours of you telling us (or 4 hours on a weekend or Bank Holiday).

If you’ve not lost supply:
- If it’s an emergency situation, we’ll start looking into the issue either remotely or by visiting your property within 3 hours of you telling us (or 4 hours on a weekend or Bank Holiday). 
- If it’s not, we’ll look at arranging a maintenance appointment.

If you let us know about a problem outside of working hours, the 3 or 4-hour period in which we must resolve the problem will begin at the start of the next working day.

If we don’t attend within those timescales, we’ll pay you compensation – see Compensation Payments below for more details.

To let us know about an issue with your prepayment meter, you can chat with us (our opening hours are Monday to Friday 8am-6pm or 9am-5pm on weekends and Bank holidays).

Performance of Electricity Distribution Networks & Gas Transporters

If the companies responsible for the gas and electricity transportation networks in your area experience issues which affect your supply, they may be required to pay you compensation. We might be asked to make this payment on their behalf.

They would advise us how much to pay you – and if we don’t pay you within 10 working days, we’ll pay you compensation as outlined below.

Refunding Final Credit Balances

If you move out of a property that’s on supply with us, or switch to another supplier, we’ll issue a refund of your final credit balance within 10 working days of sending your final statement.

If we fail to do this, we’ll pay you compensation as outlined in Compensation Payments below. Please note, this doesn’t apply if you’ve been erroneously transferred – keep reading for more details.

Erroneous Transfers

If your supply is accidentally switched to Boost, or if you’re switched from Boost to another supplier (both without a valid contract1), this is called an ‘erroneous transfer’.

This can happen if we’ve received the wrong details somewhere, or if we’ve made a mistake on our side. We do our best to prevent them, but it can happen.

If you think your supply has been wrongly moved to Boost without a valid contract1, as part of Ofgem’s Guaranteed Standards of Performance, we’ll pay you £30 if it’s found to be an erroneous transfer. As well as this, if your supply has been transferred to or from Boost without a valid contract1, here’s how we’ll sort it out.

If you get in touch with us directly to let us know, we’ll contact the other supplier within 20 days to decide if an erroneous transfer has happened. We’ll then let you know what’s happening within 20 days:

  • We’ll let you know by letter that it’s an erroneous transfer and your supply is being returned.
  • Or we’ll let you know the outcome of our discussion with the other supplier.

As soon as we’ve confirmed it’s an erroneous transfer, we’ll begin switching your supply back to Boost and complete that within 21 days.

If you’ve become a Boost customer as part of a “Supplier of Last Resort” transfer, the above doesn’t apply.

Should we fail to do any of the above, we’ll pay you compensation as outlined below.

1 “Valid Contract” means a contract for the supply of energy that has been entered in by yourself with the supplier and relates to the property that has been transferred.

Final Billing

We’ll send you a final statement within 6 weeks of your energy supply leaving us or if you’ve told us you’re moving out of a home we supply.

If we don’t do that, we’ll pay you £30 compensation as part of Ofgem’s Guaranteed Standards of Performance. This won’t apply for erroneous transfers or if there’s a dispute over your billing.

15-day working switch

We’ll switch your energy supply to us within 15 working days of receiving the information we need for the switch.

If we don’t do that, we’ll pay you £30 compensation as part of Ofgem’s Guaranteed Standards of Performance. This won’t apply if we believe there’s evidence of fraudulent behaviour relating to the switch, or if it’s delayed for reasons outside our control. '

Compensation Payments

If we breach any of the above service standards, we’ll pay you £30 as compensation within 10 working days.

If we don’t pay you within 10 working days, we’ll pay you an additional £30 compensation within a further 10 working days.

This payment is made per property, and can be paid through any reasonable method on your request, such as to your bank account, cheque or loaded to your meter.

Compensation Dispute

There are some circumstances in which we will not pay you the £30 compensation.

  • If we’re in genuine dispute with you as to whether we are obligated to make a compensation payment, or if you’ve told us you don’t want the payment.
  • If we’ve already paid you for one failure relating to an appointment, we won’t pay you again for repeated failures of the same kind.
  • If the visit is for a PAYG fault or a reconnection/disconnection, and therefore does not apply as an appointment and standards relating to it.
  • If something occurs outside of our control that means we’ve been unable to attend your property e.g the act of a person who is not a representative of OVO blocks the appointment or there is an emergency or severe weather conditions.
  • If you tell us that you no longer wish to take action or any further action over the issue in hand.
  • In cases of potential energy theft, where we suspect the meter has been tampered with.
  • If we cannot safely gain legal access to the meter or property.
  • If we haven’t been able to access your property to fix a faulty prepayment meter because you declined our request to visit.

All of the above standards are subject to change from Ofgem, and if we are required to pay in relation to this change, this will not stop us from dealing with that standard in a way that will resolve any related issues.

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