EKOMI STARINSIGHTS: German Energy Sector

The overview of German energy sector

With autumn comes the change in electricity prices. It is time to decide whether your provider is the best choice, or you need to switch to a new one. eKomi is glad to present you with a fresh overview of the market based on companies’ ratings.

Today energy providers not only “go green” by looking for more sustainable energy sources but are also taking steps towards becoming more consumer-oriented. More and more companies admit the value of delivering positive customer experience making it their priority to listen to their clients and deliver services that make many lives easier. Customer reviews are becoming more and more important in the energy sector. Electricity consumption has evolved from a classical utility service into tailored energy solutions. It also finds its way into other sectors such as heating (e.g. heat pumps) and mobility (e.g. electric vehicles). This means that the offer is more complex than ever and requires more detailed advisory services, expertise and greater customer-centricity. “A simple price comparison is no longer enough to find the perfect partner. Exceptional service and user-friendliness are the key success factors.”–Polarstern, 2018.

There are 1.174 electricity providers in Germany in 2018 [AC1] and over 12.000 different tariffs. This essentially translates into around 14.088.000 options. The competition is intense. Each household has on average 91 providers to choose from. Are you patient enough to complete a comparison between the tariffs of 91 providers? Would you risk nerves and time to do it? Probably not. For this reason,we often choose the first provider we find or the one that is best rated. Here,feedback from fellow-consumers can ease the decision-making.

Top energy providers in Germany. Stand 25.10.2018

eKomi: Best-Rated Energy companies in Germany

Company	Rating	Number of Reviews
Polarstern	4,9	218
Knauber Strom	4,8	80
BEV Energie	4,7	5.344
Rheinpower	4,7	2036
ESWE	4,7	328
Mainova	4,6	629
MAINGAU Energie	4,6	359
Yello	4,5	68
SWK ENERGIE CmbH	4,5	740
WEMAG	4,5	176
E.ON AG	4,4	1.506
EnBW	4,4	1.153
lekker Energie GmbH	4,4	142
ENTREGA Energie GmbH	4,3	490
Vattenfall GmbH	4,2	2.642
ExtraEnergie GmbH	3,7	35

*last 12 months

 eKomi: Most-Reviewed Energy Companies in Geramany

Company	Rating	Number of Reviews*
BEV Energie	4,7	5.344
Vattenfall GmbH	4,2	2.642
Rheinpower	4,7	2.036
E.ON AG	4,4	1.506
EnBW	4,4	1.137
SWK ENERGIE CmbH	4,5	740
Mainova	4,6	629
ENTREGA Energie GmbH	4,3	490
MAINGAU Energie	4,6	359
ESWE	4,7	328
Polarstern	4,9	218
WEMAG	4,5	176
lekker Energie GmbH	4,4	142
Knauber Strom	4,8	80
Yello	4,6	68
ExtraEnergie GmbH	3,9	35

*last 12 months

Overview

Polarstern occupies first place with an almost perfect 4,9-Star-Rating. Although it no longer has a full 5 stars, we observe consistency and consumer focus, which allow the provider to keep its leading position. Moreover, Polarstern has demonstrated excellent work with negative feedback, replying to 1, 2 and 3 Stars reviews on their certificate page.

The second place belongs to Knauber Strom with an outstanding 4,8-Star-Rating. The number of reviews collected by Knauber Strom is, however, much lower than of BEV Energie and Rheinpower, which follow with 4,7 stars.

We cannot help but admire the pro-activity and exceptional customer service which helped BEV Energie and Rheinpower to collect 5.344 and 2.036 reviews accordingly and achieve such a high rating.

SWK ENERGIE GmbH and E.ON AG have both kept their positions since 2017, losing just 0,1 Stars and going down to 4,5- and 4,4-Star-Rating accordingly. Both companies have collected a considerable number of reviews to ensure credibility of their rating. Nonetheless, we have noticed that SWK ENERGIE GmbH and E.ON AG do not address negative reviews on their certificate pages, thus there is still room for improvement here and a possibility to get a better rating.

Research shows that nearly a fifth of customers return to a provider and even become loyal customers when a business acknowledges and takes care of their bad experience. Consequently, energy providers shouldn’t neglect negative feedback, but instead use it as a source of information and an opportunity to build trust through active engagement with their clients.

We would recommend every business to work with negative reviews and derive value from it. It is especially beneficial for companies with ratings below 4,5 and high review-collection rates. When a company is effectively collecting consumer feedback, low rating shows that there is a room for improvement in customer service.

Some energy providers in the list have collected fewer reviews than others in the past year, among them:

• Stadtwerke Speyer
• ExtraEnergie GmbH
• Yello
• Knauber Strom

We understand that there might be multiple reasons for low review collection, but we hope that the above-mentioned energy providers will implement a more proactive approach in review collection next year and bring their reputation in the highly competitive energy sector to a new level.

Analysis

Although a full 5-Star-Rating is tempting and desirable, there should always be a delicate balance between ratings and number of reviews. Think about it: would you be more likely to choose a company with a 5-star-rating based on 5 reviews, or a 4.9-Rating based on 500 reviews? It’s common sense really, and part of human nature and group-think. The more people have had a good experience, the more likely you will be to have one as well. It is, certainly, more difficult to keep all 5 stars when a company collects over a 1000 reviews per year, yet still providers such as BEV Energie prove that it is possible to collect plenty of feedback and keep a high rating- superb Customer Experience is the key.

Five shiny yellow stars look great on a website, but the more reviews a business collects, the more authentic this rating looks. In fact, 68% of consumers trust online reviews more, when both good and bad scores are present. A lack of low scores raises the suspicion of censored or faked feedback. Hence, companies shouldn’t be afraid of negative reviews, but instead should embrace them, reply to them, solve cases and learn from them to create loyal customers.

The average Star-Rating is based on a quantity of reviews collected in the last 12 months. Google, Check24, eKomi and many other platforms use this measure to ensure that a provider is continually working on its reputation and that consumers can see its up-to-date rating, instead of a 2-3-year-old one. Imagine, you move to a new city and search for an electricity provider. Which reviews would interest you more: recent or older than one year. We strongly believe that the recent ones.

Other Review Platforms

It becomes challenging for classical price comparison platforms to incorporate different aspects of a tariff especially when particular packages gain in importance (e.g. bundles). Not to mention complex energy solutions which include electrification, heating and charging stations for electric vehicles. Individual offers are more difficult to understand, and harder to build into a standard comparison matrix. Here trust comes into play and undertakes a significant role in consumers’ decision-making.

We wanted to extend our research this year and provide you with a broader picture of online ratings of companies in energy sector. We have collected data from multiple sources such as Check24, Verivox and Trustpilot. Before we have a closer look at the results, we would like to point out that the providers of ecological electricity are not yet well represented on common comparison websites, but you can find a nice overview at Utopia.de.

Comparison of company ratings on different platforms

	eKomi1	Check241	Verivox2	Trustpilot3
Polarstern	4,9	4,9	–	–
Knauber Strom	4,8	4,6	95%	–
BEV Energie	4,7	4,2	86%	–
Rheinpower	4,7	4,6	91%	6,4
ESWE	4,7	4,5	88%	–
Mainova	4,6	4,5	81%	3,5
MAINGAU Energie	4,6	4,5	98%	–
Yello	4,5	4,4	95%	–
SWK ENERGIE CmbH	4,5	4,4	92%	5
WEMAG	4,5	4,4	100%	–
E.ON AG	4,4	4,5	93%	4
EnBW	4,4	4,4	88%	–
lekker Energie GmbH	4,4	4,4	85%	–
ENTREGA Energie GmbH	4,3	4,2	88%	–
Vattenfall GmbH	4,2	4,5	91%	1,9
ExtraEnergie GmbH	3,7	4,2	35%	5,2

Comparison of company ratings on different platforms

Company	eKomi1	Check241	Verivox2	Trustpilot3
Polarstern	218	30.868	–	–
Knauber Strom	80	369	42	–
BEV Energie	5.344	40607	21	–
Rheinpower	2036	1915	6732	557
ESWE	328	2808	100	–
Mainova	629	1982	118	9
MAINGAU Energie	359	3023	1042	–
Yello	68	1438	128	–
SWK ENERGIE CmbH	740	1265	291	3
WEMAG	176	183	3	–
E.ON AG	1.506	2087	2728	6
EnBW	1.153	1886	34	–
lekker Energie GmbH	142	459	224	–
ENTREGA Energie GmbH	490	1585	32	–
Vattenfall GmbH	2.642	24.694	1364	44
ExtraEnergie GmbH	35	3451	69	7

1. eKomi and Check24 use a scale from 0 to 5 with 5 being the best result
2. Verivox uses a percentage from 0 to 100% with 100% being the best result
3. Trustpilot uses a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the best result

Based on this initial research, we can draw the following conclusions:

• BEV Energie, Polarstern and Vattenfall accumulated the highest number of reviews across all websites.
• Energy providers show the worst results on Trustpilot with either no score or an average score of 4,58 out of 10.
• Check24 is a platform highly used by energy providers, consequently we observe a high number of reviews.What is interesting is that all companies which also work with eKomi have 4 or more stars on Check24.
• Most of the providers apart from ExtraEnergie, which has shown only 35%, have a good rating on Verivox. However,half of the companies do not possess a compatible (more than 100) quantity of reviews.

In summary, the best rating-reviews ration can be found on eKomi’s certificate pages and on Check24.

Energy Companies with no reviews up to date

Despite the increasing complexity of the offer and raising importance of customer-centricity, there are still many energy providers which have not yet started collecting customer feedback and are thus behind on building transparency and trust. In this highly competitive market their rivals can use this opportunity to gallop further and win their current customers.

Below you can find a list of companies which have a rating on verivox.de, but do not collect and manage their own seller and product reviews.

1. EWE
2. 4hundred
3. Audax Energie
4. badenova
5. Bodensee Energie
6. BS ENERGY
7. Citiwerke
8. DREWAG
9. E WIE EINFACH
10. EBLD Schweiz Strom
11. eins
12. Elogico
13. EMB Brandenburg
14. EMMA
15. enercity
16. Energie SaarLorLux
17. energieGUT
18. enerSwitch
19. enno energie
20. ENPURE
21. ENSO
22. enviaM
23. eprimo
24. Erdgas Schwaben
25. Erdgas Südwest
26. EV Filstral
27. FairEnergie
28. fünfwerke
29. Fuxx
30. GASPAR
31. GGEW
32. goldgas
33. Greenline
34. Greenpeace Energy
35. Grüner Funke
36. Hamburg Energie
37. idealenergie
38. immergrün! Energie
39. innogy
40. Jura Strom
41. Kiss me green
42. Leu Energie
43. LEW
44. LogoEnergie
45. LUDVIKK
46. MONTANA
47. NaturEnergiePlus
48. N-ERGIE
49. nbv
50. ORIGINAL ENERGIE
51. ovag Energie
52. priostrom
53. PROKON
54. Regionale EnergieW
55. Regionalw Bodensee
56. RevierKraft
57. schwarzwald energie
58. SE StadtwerkeVerbund
59. Stadtwerk am See
60. Stadtwerke Bochum
61. Stadtwerke Duisburg
62. Stadtwerke Fellbach
63. Stadtwerke Flensburg
64. Stadtwerke Schwerin
65. Stadtwerke Wedel
66. STIEBEL ELTRON
67. STROGON
68. Strom.Manufaktur
69. Süwag
70. Sw Augsburg
71. Sw Düsseldorf AG
72. Sw Elmshorn
73. Sw Hamm
74. Sw Memmingen
75. Sw Pulheim
76. SW Rostock
77. Sw Springe
78. Sw Tübingen
79. Sw Wismar
80. SWM
81. SWU Energie
82. Systemstrom
83. team energie
84. VereinigteStadtwerke
85. Wunderwerk