In the light of this weeks announcement from British Gas with details of their vast profits we decided, being British Gas customers (for electricity) to check whether we were being charged over the top for our electricity. And it was by great co-incidence that the latest edition of Convenience Store magazine arrived on our doorstep with an article all about the increases in utility costs for retailers and details of how to compare and switch. We immediately got online to Makeitcheaper.com and having studied their website gave them a call.
The phone was answered very quickly and politely and after giving some very brief details from our latest bill, the young man we spoke to advised yes we could make some savings. Not as much as others he admitted but savings were still there to be made. He advised all we needed to do was check the expiry date of our current contract and get back to him and he could do all that was needed for us to benefit from the cheaper rates.
With utility and others costs continually increasing, this is one service we will certainly be taking advantage of as in order to ensure the survival of our rural businesses we all need to ensure that where costs can be saved we take advantage of them. Although we must also bear in mind many of us also survive on the service that we provide to our customers and we will also have to take this into consideration when looking to switch – what level of service will we get from the new provider.
However it’s not going to take much thinking about as when we first took over the store it took British Gas about 5 attempts and numbers of different contracts later to get our details and billing set up correctly - we must have given them our bank details at least 4 times before they managed to set up a correct DD.
For any other village store or rural business out there we would recommend getting your last utility bill out and spending just a few minutes to see if your can make any savings. At the end of the day it may make a big difference.
Best wishes
Rob & Ali
