A medium-sized hotel in NY City asked us to help them get pricing from suppliers.  It is not something we usually do, but we agreed to do it in this case.  We contacted 5 suppliers who are reputable and who we know pretty well.  Four of the five were very responsive– Con Ed Solutions, Trans Canada, Constellation NewEnergy and Hess Energy were professional and provided great service and pricing.  We are still in the process of working with this client, but in general these four suppliers have offered really good “pre-sale” service.

The fifth supplier, Direct Energy, was problematic.  While I know people at the company, I opted to approach them “cold” to better determine how people like you, customers, would navigate the process of getting service and pricing from suppliers.  I went to Direct’s website to get an initial introduction to their business services group.  A day or so after I approached the company, I received a call from someone at Direct.  She said she would be our rep at Direct.  I gave her some general information and asked for her direct telephone line and email address.  She said she would send it to me in an email.  I didn’t hear from her.  I called her back a few days later.  She said she would send it to me again.  She also said that pricing usually takes a week or so.  I asked why– usage acquisition and pricing should take 24 hours, at the most.  She said she would get expedited pricing from her “supervisor”.

Red flag #1:  Any business culture that requires someone to invoke the supervisor on the second call is not one that any customer should want to navigate.  I was on warning.  Getting pricing in a reasonable time frame was already going “outside the policies” of the business.  Buyer beware.

My contact at Direct Business Services received the necessary approvals over the phone (to her credit).  I asked why I hadn’t heard from her.  She said something about someone new being trained…..

Red flag #2: More policy and procedures.  Oh dear.  Honestly, as a client, I don’t care who is being trained, I just want to do business.  More impediments to doing business?  Hard to understand.

I finally received an email from the person who was being trained.  She was sending me a letter of authorization to get the customer’s usage data from the utility.  To my great surprise, the email address read soandso@agrgroupinc.com.  I replied to the email and asked for my initial contact’s direct line and email address.  Here’s what I got back from her:

Direct Energy Consultants do not have direct numbers or email. I handle all email correspondence working directly with each Energy Consultant. You may contact her by simply calling 1-800-968-3239. We all work for Direct Energy Business Services.

I have copied the Director of Sales – [Name deleted   ] who is directly over [name deleted] and my Director of Operations [Names deleted]. They may also be reached at the 800 number or via email.

I appreciate your understanding and continued interest in Direct Energy Business Services.

Red flag #3: I daresay Red Flags #3, #4, #5 are obvious.  “Simply calling” an 800 number is an oxymoron.  These people do not work for Direct Energy Business Services.  They work for an outsourced sales organization that is not doing a very good job of making it easy for customers to use their services or benefit from Direct’s supply pricing.

I called my contact back at her 800 number, suggested that what she was doing was not serving me or my client and that we would not be interested in receiving pricing from Direct Energy Business Services, or whoever they were. I was not just reacting to the fact that I was being misled.  This group is at least one step removed from Direct.  To me this means three things:  they only add margin to the deal; they make it difficult to work with Direct; down the road, if there are any issues with billing or service there is an additional layer to navigate; this can only mean headaches for our customer.  A review of the New York Public Service Commission’s recent Monthly Consumer Complaint Report shows that other business customers have also had problems with Direct Energy Business Services (see page 12, 13).

Another strong piece of advice for those of you going out and getting pricing from suppliers… take a look at the NY Commission’s complaint report–go to the last 2 pages in the report for information on ESCO complaints.  It will help you to identify suppliers/ESCOs who are providing great service.  You can narrow your list of potential suppliers/ESCOs quickly by only contacting the ones that have few complaints.

I tried to contact someone I know at Direct to discuss this situation and provide her with my feedback.  She has not responded to me.

The bottom line:  With over 90 retail suppliers licensed in New York, and lots of incoming phone calls about buying energy, it can be befuddling to wade through the options.  There are some significant differences between suppliers that come to light in the pre-sale process.  Don’t ignore the signals you receive during that process.  Culture counts, and you’ll learn a lot about a culture when you contact these companies.  Also, use all the resources available to you to conduct due diligence (like NY State’s Complaint list).