St Michael Church

"Let down by another broker with no customer service..."

• Location: Cheshire
• Sector: Charity / Church Buildings
• Saving: £2k

St Michael's is a Church of England church, next to the Town Hall in the old Marketplace of Macclesfield. As the head church in a group of four in the Macclesfield Team Parish - with its welcome area, meeting rooms and kitchen facilities - remains open to the public throughout the week.

Volunteer treasurer, David Smith, is an accountant by profession and has been looking after St Michael's coffers for 13 years. His role is to keep overheads in check and his portfolio of responsibility includes water, Borough Council rent, rates, gas and electricity. Initially David signed into utility contracts with the help of an agent approved by the Diocese of Chester. However he discovered the hard way that the agent was not well enough informed to prevent St Michael's from being tied-in to paying uncompetitive rates with incumbent suppliers when the contracts came up for renewal.

Taking matters into his own hands David began by approaching a number of gas and electricity suppliers directly for quotes but then found Make It Cheaper could do all the legwork for him. At David's request, Make It Cheaper handled the switches (free of charge) for both the gas and electricity and will now be responsible for making sure that St Michael's is not rolled over on to higher rates in future.

As such, the church stands to save in the region of £2,000 over the next 12 months. Once a year, in April, David reports back to the Diocese at the Macclesfield Team Parish AGM. This year he will be highlighting the savings being made and reminding other church treasurers that there's no such thing as customer loyalty with energy suppliers and, by staying with the same company from one year to the next, they too will be automatically rolled on to more expensive tariffs.