Energy costs are often viewed by businesses as a grim and uncontrollable necessity, but an experienced energy broker can help you regain control of your energy contract and reduce costs.
With the challenging markets that many businesses find themselves operating in, dedicating significant resources to the management of a company’s energy portfolio is simply not an option.
Therefore it is no surprise that there are managers and business owners opting to outsource to an independent energy broker.
In our blogpost today, we will look into 5 different areas where an energy Broker can assist businesses in saving money.
1. Switching Your Supplier
It will come as little surprise that switching suppliers can result in remarkable savings, and with the right help it can be an easy victory.
However, with so many energy suppliers and a competitive marketplace, there are numerous offers available and significant savings to be missed. Without expertise and the right tools, this process can quickly become overwhelming to someone not familiar with the energy industry.
It can be hard to make sense of it all when you have to factor in the many different components that make up an energy bill. Hidden costs, standing charges and the passing on of third-party costs can quickly add up. At worst it could even wipe out the benefit of switching at all.
Thankfully energy consultants may have the aforementioned tools and expertise to swiftly understand your business needs and find the best, cheapest supplier to meet those needs.
2. Invoice Oversight & Administrative Error Checking
There are many components of an energy bill where administrative errors and overcharging can occur. This can include incorrect estimates of usage, miscommunication between suppliers during a switch over, misapplied charges and a myriad of additional issues. Each one may be small, but that only makes them harder to spot and it could soon pile up without a scheduled and dedicated review of your energy bill.
The prospect of such a validation process is not enticing to a business. It would require time, trust and expertise, which are all extremely valuable resources to any business and not available to spare.
An energy broker will already possess the necessary expertise and experience to reconcile and review your bills for costly mistakes and discrepancies.
3. Efficiency Savings And Usage Management
In addition to errors, the bills you receive from an energy provider can be hard to interpret, even if they are free of errors. Different prices at different times of day or steadily increasing energy usage for an unknown reason. These occurrences don’t immediately stand out, but they might be avoidable. As stated in point 1, businesses do not need to stoically bear the brunt of these costs when there may be an easy solution.
Your energy provider might not be any help but an energy broker may possess the tools required to expertly and accurately identify measures that could save your business money.
4. Provide Impartial Advice, Industry Connections
With the rise of comparison sites across many industries, businesses assume that it has never been easier to get service direct from the supplier.
However, comparison sites contain their own pitfalls and risks. Ultimately, a comparison site is full of energy companies trying to sell you their product with little input from the site and impartiality can suffer.
A comparison site wants to make a purchase. An energy broker wants to ensure you get the deal that is best for your business.
Energy brokers help to keep energy suppliers competitive. A business going directly to a comparison site cannot hope to wield a fraction of the influence and expertise of an energy broker going to energy suppliers, forearmed with knowledge and contacts.
In a study by OFGEM, the government regulator for gas and electric, it is detailed frequently that the businesses opted for a comparison site. Some examples stated for reasons against comparison sites included:
Lack of sufficient options; with only a small number of options being presented;
Difficulties in understanding options as comparisons between one supplier and/or tariff and another are not straightforward with the variations in costs per unit and standing charges;
High cost/little difference compared to existing tariff.
A qualified energy broker avoids all of these issues completely.
The full report can be read here on OFGEM’s government website.
5. Aftercare And Rollover Contract Avoidance
As stated previously, it is easy for a business to become apathetic when it comes to dealing with the energy bill. The temptation is to assume that the less time you have to spend thinking about energy bills, the more time can be spent thinking about your business’ needs.
But when a company takes its eye off of the bill entirely, it becomes a blindspot. A blindspot that can result in unnecessary costs to your business. Without proper account management, these costs are likely to only go up. Even if you receive a good deal from an energy company initially, you could soon find yourself in an expensive rollover contract with terms and conditions (T&Cs) already binding you in.
An energy broker will not only have a deeper and more immediate understanding of the T&Cs of the energy contract they are setting up, they will be able to ensure you receive the best deal moving forward.
In addition, account management and aftercare can be handy for the smaller, more regular inconveniences that can occur with a business/energy supplier relationship. These include, but are not limited to, submitting queries on your behalf, dealing with meter readings, reconciling bills across multiple sites within your business or even just answering simple questions.
We Can Save Your Business Money Right Now
At Switch Business Utilities, we offer a complete business energy broker service. We’re already got decades worth of experience working in the energy sector. We already have the contacts to get you the best deal and start saving you thousands on your annual energy bills.
You don’t have to spend anymore of your energy worrying about your bills – we’ll handle the research, negotiation and aftercare to make sure you continue getting the best deal on your business energy.
If you are interested in discussing this, then please contact us.
