What is The Vulnerability Commitment?

The Vulnerability Commitment is a voluntary agreement launched by Energy UK in December 2020. It is open to all energy suppliers and aims to improve the support available to vulnerable households.  

Its signatories are committed to going above and beyond their licence obligations and proactively evaluating their own performance in this area. They collaboratively share good practice, and transparently outline the support they provide to vulnerable households. 

We are proud to be a founding signatory of the vulnerability commitment and have voluntarily pledged to a series of commitments aimed at improving the services we offer to those that need it.  

There are three specific areas that the Vulnerability Commitment focuses on: accessibility, collaboration and innovation. 

What Are the Commitments? 

There are 16 commitments that we have promised to meet. These include: 

• Providing a variety of communication channels that are appropriate and suitable for our customers’ needs. Customers can contact us via email, post, telephone or find us on social media. We now have a freephone number available for those in financial hardship. Customers can also request paper versions of their bills. 
• Supporting the development of best practice guides for utilising smart technology by engaging with Energy UK and other suppliers who have signed up to the commitment. 
• Assigning a dedicated Vulnerability Champion at board level who will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of the commitments. 
• Ensure Customers have a package of support including energy efficiency information and are signposted to independent financial advice 
• Gathering ongoing feedback from our Customers on whether our billing communications are easy to understand and make continuous improvements. 

Full details of the Vulnerability Commitment can be found here. 

We continue to build on the results from last year’s research and will conduct further research with vulnerable customers to understand their experiences as energy customers. 

We are sharing our free phone number with our PSR customers, to register please visit our Priority Services Register page. Alternatively, if you need to use the free phone number please contact customer services and we can share this with you. If you require paper versions of your bills, these can be requested on our PSR form or contact Customer Services and we will update your account.  

We have lots of information on our website offering energy efficiency advice, please see the article on energy saving tips. We are also a participant of the Energy Company Obligation Scheme, aimed at helping low-income and vulnerable households reduce their heating costs by installing energy-efficiency measures. 

We have several useful links to free, independent advice on knowing your rights as an energy consumer and how to get help if you are struggling to pay your bills. 

How to get support if you are a vulnerable Customer? 

Please find further information about our Priority Services Register here. 

If you would like to speak to someone about getting more support, please contact us: 

Phone: 0330 111 5050 

Email: help@so.energy 

Website: www.so.energy 

Post: So Energy, Care of Apogee , 6-8 Bonhill Street, London, EC2A 4BX