Customer satisfaction levels for the big six energy suppliers have plunged following two rounds of price hikes this year.

The latest customer satisfaction report from uSwitch.com shows less than half of consumers (45 per cent) now say that suppliers offer value for money, while only four in ten (41 per cent) customers think their provider is offering the best deal.

Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has won the consumer vote for the fifth consecutive time – 69 per cent of customers are satisfied – while npower was voted the worst, with less than half of its customers (46 per cent) satisfied.

Ann Robinson, consumer policy director at uSwitch.com, said: “Price rises were never going to be a vote winner, but this year’s increases have hit people exceptionally hard and inevitably it has damaged their perception of the industry.

“Sadly this has undone a lot of the hard work suppliers have put in to improving service, setting them back to where they were a couple of years ago.”

Npower said it is “disappointed” with coming bottom of the table. Julie Jaglowski, head of npower residential customer services, said: “Currently, we have a major programme of investment in new systems and improvements to our infrastructure: we are expanding our call centres, which are all UK-based, and have recruited an additional 300 people across the whole of our customer services operations this year.

“We are also investing around £200 million in our systems, which will dramatically help improve the service customers receive.

“We’re confident these changes will result in much improved customer satisfaction but unfortunately, with a programme of this scale, it can be difficult to avoid any periods of disruption and we apologise to customers who feel less than satisfied.”

However, the price hikes damaged customer perception across the industry and even table topper Scottish and Southern Energy saw a six per cent decline in satisfaction levels.