Energy and natural resources sector

Octopus Energy’s rise in the UK Customer Experience Excellence rankings, up 89 places, is the result of a strategy that balances a relentless focus on the fundamentals with consistent innovation. According to Joe Richardson, Director at Octopus, the shift is not about sweeping changes but rather “doubling down on what we do well.”

At the heart of this progress lies a commitment to the basics: high-quality interactions, accurate billing, and reliable smart meter connections. These improvements are underpinned by an agile operating model, delivering small enhancements every week that compound into significant change over time. Equally important is the empowerment of front-line teams.

Octopus has pushed further this year to grant customer specialists greater autonomy, permissions, training, and tools. This allows them to resolve issues quickly and deliver more personalised experiences, avoiding the pitfalls of rigid call-time targets or impersonal chatbot deflections. 

Building trust through integrity 

Octopus scores particularly strongly on Integrity, a critical dimension in a sector where transparency and fairness are often questioned. Richardson highlights three pillars of trust: 

•  Transparency: Clear tariffs, simple explanations, and proactive pricing adjustments build credibility. Octopus openly advocates for reforms that reduce costs for consumers.
• Fairness: By rejecting exit fees and long-term contracts, Octopus places power in customers’ hands, ensuring loyalty is earned, not enforced. 
• Human connection: Fast access to real people, consistent tone, and a focus on solving problems strengthen long-term trust. 

Personalisation at scale 

A key differentiator for Octopus is its ability to personalise services while serving millions of customers. Its proprietary Kraken platform provides rich data and context to tailor experiences. The company’s team-based model assigns customers to a group of 12–15 specialists, ensuring familiarity and continuity rather than faceless interactions. This human-tech blend helps create relationships at scale. 

Innovation that delivers real value 

Innovation at Octopus is designed to simplify lives, cut costs, and accelerate the green energy transition. Flexible tariffs like Agile Octopus and Intelligent Octopus enable customers to align their energy use with periods of lowest price and carbon intensity, saving money while supporting sustainability. Meanwhile, Octopus is simplifying the path to low-carbon technologies such as solar, batteries, and heat pumps, making them accessible and financially attractive to households. 

Sustaining momentum 

Looking ahead, Octopus sees the economics of low-carbon technology as “inescapable.” As adoption accelerates, the company plans to combine cuttingedge hardware with user-friendly apps, innovative tariffs, and human service. Richardson believes this formula will empower customers to fully participate in the energy revolution: “We think the Octopus combination of great hardware, amazing apps/account and innovative tariffs, backed up with brilliant, human service, will enable customers to make the most of this energy revolution.” Octopus Energy’s trajectory demonstrates how consistency in execution, anchored in transparency and fairness, combined with purposeful innovation, can reshape customer experience in a sector often characterised by complexity and mistrust.