Ask These Questions When Screening The Best Business Electricity Consultant

If you are running a business, whether small or large, you may experience that you don’t have much time to address your business’s energy needs sufficiently. You are too busy with other important matters that need attention. However, every time you receive your monthly energy bills, you realise that it is time that you take action to find solutions.

One effective solution you can do is hire business electricity consultants. These professionals are experts in creating and designing plans to be more energy-conscious and lower the overall energy cost.

To find the right electricity consultant, ask these questions:

How good is your track record with small businesses?

Asking to see the names of other companies of your size that have used the service is a good idea, assuming the information is not confidential. Check if your potential supplier has a list of customers who have agreed to talk about their experiences with the company or have posted testimonials on their website. By doing this, you can discover if other small businesses have also benefited from small business electricity prices with the help of their consultant.

How does your pricing structure work?

Finding out the kilowatt per hour charges can help you make the right decision for your small business. But several factors can affect the pricing that you need to know, such as price spikes at a different time of the day.

What innovations do you use to control costs?

The cloud and other IT technologies allow energy providers to give their customers real-time updates in many circumstances. By asking, you will discover if the provider uses technologies to help reduce energy cost, enabling them to provide more efficient service if you hire them.

How good is your market access?

A Third-Party Intermediary (TPI) with established and ideally formalised relationships with many suppliers is likely to be in a better position to find you the most suitable arrangement for your needs. Find out the increase of suppliers from which they would present you with their proposals. Credit availability is sometimes a barrier, and it may be that your credit rating limits how many suppliers quote for your business.

How many suppliers do you place business with?

A wide spread indicates that the energy consultant is offering the best business electricity rates in the market. But don’t be put off if the distribution is a bit uneven – if the majority of your TPI’s customers are concentrated around a few key suppliers, that may be because those suppliers are offering the most favourable terms.

How will you help make an informed decision?

Make sure your TPI presents supplier offers in a way that lets you compare like for like – not just on presented price, but also on contract terms and conditions, pros and cons, and so on. When collecting information about the best business electricity rates, ask the energy consultant to put in all the details of the charges, including the VAT, among other things.  They have a method for standardising estimates of difficult to forecast ‘pass through costs’ such as renewable energy incentives.

Can you show me my daily energy use?

If you can see how much you are using day-by-day or hour-by-hour, you can uncover ways to lower your bills seriously. The real question is how well your consultant can give you the best small business electricity prices.

Are my electricity and gas bills correct?

Many businesses are paying too much for their energy, sometimes because they don’t understand their bills or are on the wrong tariff. Do you have ample time to examine every bill down to the last penny? The easiest way to get the right answer to these questions is not by spending time chasing energy suppliers but by going to one place. Business electricity consultants can save you time analysing your power and water bills (to see what’s hidden) and take the hassle of trying to contact energy suppliers. Large businesses can benefit from their strategic approach to procurement and their expertise in areas where in-house they may not have a subject covered.

When you hire a business electricity consultant, make sure that you have asked these questions. These will help you evaluate their response to find the right consultant for your business. Hiring an electricity consultant allows you to focus your attention on other essential business issues.