Following the 'Reset Review' of its business announced last week, E.ON has launched a set of principles for business energy brokers and called on other energy firms to follow its lead.

Over 50% of all micro businesses1 use a broker to switch energy supplier however there is currently no minimum standard in place to protect micro businesses throughout the sales process.

Following Ofgem's recent guidance, that it would introduce an accreditation scheme for codes of practice governing energy brokers, E.ON has welcomed this move to help protect micro businesses and has produced a set of principles highlighting the promises it demands energy brokers to meet when selling to customers.

Iain Walker, Head of SME Sales at E.ON, said: "It's time to change the way we do business, as a company and as an industry. We're committed to driving sales standards upwards and making life easier for our business customers. We believe that customers would be best served by a single independent code of practice, and we would like to work with Ofgem, businesses and the industry to develop this."

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The core purpose of E.ON's set of principles is to ensure that all parties are fair, honest and transparent when dealing with business customers. The E.ON principles will ensure the entire sales process is transparent, the product which is offered is appropriate to the needs and circumstances of the customer and the product structure is clear.

The company will be urging all business energy brokers/consultants to implement its set of principles as part of their sales processes and intends to work with leading figures in industry to finalise a code and to look at other issues which need to be tackled to improve the customer experience for small and medium sized businesses.

Iain Vause, CEO at Billscutter, said: "We welcome and fully support E.ON's set of principles. We'd like to see a single code of practice which will increase sales standards across the entire industry, and we look forward to working with like minded organisations to develop an effective, accredited code as soon as possible."

(CD)