In my previous article covering web design for plumbers I looked at a set of search phrases related to fixed price boiler repairs which included several Google search phrases related to British Gas:
- British Gas Fixed Price Boiler Repair
- British Gas Fixed Price Repair Boiler
- British Gas Boiler Fixed Price Repair
- British Gas Fixed Price Boiler Repair Review
Together these four search phrases generate around 100 visitors a month from Google UK, making them a worthwhile SEO test phrase for my SEO web design service for plumbers: hence this British Gas review article.
British Gas Review
I’ve not used a British Gas fixed price boiler repair service, in fact my only dealings with British Gas other than as a gas customer 15+ years ago, was around 8 years ago when we got a quote for a new gas combi boiler system for our large 4 storey ex-guesthouse: British Gas gave a ridiculously high quote for fitting a new combi gas boiler and new thermostatic valves for the radiators, so we didn’t use them.
Looking through the British Gas customer reviews on Trustpilot I see others also consider British Gas overpriced.
I forget the exact amount they quoted, think it was around £6,000, during the inspection the British Gas engineer said something that stuck with me (I’m sure you know how BS people say can stay with you). The engineer quoted £80 for each radiator thermostatic valve they’d be replacing (with about 17 rooms it was a LOT of radiators), he said something dumb like: you see the lads quickly wrapping the tape (PVC plumbers tape) around the radiator taps, but it’s a difficult job!
My wife (who isn’t a plumber, just an enthusiastic DIYer) has replaced the thermostatic valves on over a dozen radiators with no issues, it’s a very easy plumbing job to replace radiator valves. My wife watched some YouTube videos on how to replace radiator valves and went ahead and did it for about £15 each: that’s the cost of new thermostatic valves and plumbers PVC tape.
So everything within this article is based on online research, NOT a personal review. The comments are open, so if you have experience with British Gas, please add your review below: I’ll approve both good and bad reviews.
Does British Gas Offer a Fixed Price Boiler Repair Service?
Interestingly it wasn’t that easy to find the British Gas ‘fixed’ price boiler repair option using Google.
Search Google for “British Gas Fixed Price Boiler Repair” including the “speech marks” (that’s called an Exact Match Google search) and there isn’t even a British Gas article SPECIFICALLY targeting it, this service doesn’t exist, at least not in a way I’d consider it fixed price.
Search Google again for British Gas Fixed Price Boiler Repair without the speech marks (how most users search Google) and the Google Featured Snippet links to https://www.britishgas.co.uk/content/britishgas/products-and-services/boilers-and-central-heating/boiler-repairs.phone.html which has two price options listed.
The British Gas offer listed as a Google Featured Snippet is WAY out of date, could be as old as 2013, it definitely wasn’t available in 2015 based on this Money Saving Expert Forum post: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5376157/british-gas-fixed-99-boiler-repair-cover which references the cost at £99 for the one off fixed price repair option.
So the £79 British Gas offering is at least 5 years out of date and maybe as much 7 years out of date, British Gas really should update https://www.britishgas.co.uk/content/britishgas/products-and-services/boilers-and-central-heating/boiler-repairs.phone.html with the new prices etc…, there’s even a dead link from that webpage!
British Gas One-Off Boiler Repair Old Price
Prices range from £79 to £459 depending on how long it will take to complete the work and your location.
For this you get…
- Fixed price quote, there are no hidden charges.
- All labour and parts are included in the price.[3]
- 12 month guarantee on all work, giving you peace of mind.
- Access to our expert engineers, without the need for an annual contract.
This links to https://www.britishgas.co.uk/home-services/boilers-and-heating/boiler-and-heating-repair.html which lists a different price, the webpage Google users will find first is out of date!
British Gas One Off Boiler Repair March 2020 Price
£99 (up to 30 mins) to £499 (over 2 hours)
90% of customers pay £289 or less.
How much you’ll pay will depend on how long it takes to complete your repair and where you live.
This isn’t a fixed price boiler repair for £99 as some British Gas customers have believed it to be, some customers thought this meant their boiler would be repaired for £99 with no hidden extra costs no matter what was wrong with it.
If you have a combi boiler fault you are researching for a Gas Safe Registered Plumber (used to be called Corgi registered plumber) to repair it, and you are considering British Gas, their from £99 one off boiler repair service doesn’t mean your boiler will be repaired for the basic £99. It means your boiler will be repaired for £99 IF it can be fixed in under 30 minutes: do you think your boiler can be fixed in 30 minutes? 30 minutes isn’t very long to diagnose AND fix a combi gas boiler.
The BG engineer estimates how much it will cost to repair in time and parts BEFORE undertaking the repair: I believe the estimated price is fixed.
If the British Gas engineer estimates the repair will take over 2 hours and the parts aren’t too expensive the cost will be £499. If the parts are more expensive I believe the engineer will include this in the quote, so if your boiler needs a new part which costs £500, you aren’t going to get your boiler repaired under the one off service at a costof between £99 and £499.
They say “90% of customers pay £289 or less” which means most relatively simple/cheap British Gas boiler repairs are complete in under 2 hours.
I’d assume it’s going to cost at least £289 if you go with British Gas.
British Gas also has a second ‘fixed’ price repair option linked to a year long servicing contract called HomeCare Two.
British Gas Boiler Repair with HomeCare Two Cover
With this option British Gas are going to charge at least £403 for a combi boiler repair (the boiler repair part costs at least £109) plus 12 payments of at least £24.50 which gives you 12 months HomeCare Two cover.
You’ll note I said at least above, the actual price is based on where you live (I assume London is more expensive than Lincolnshire etc…).
Don’t assume with this British Gas repair option it means you’ll get your old knackered boiler repaired, there’s a lot of terms and conditions related to age of the boiler and what’s wrong with it. They aren’t going to charge you only £403 for a boiler repair with 12 months Home Care Two cover (where you can call them out an unlimited amount of times) if the first repair requires a £500 part or the boiler is on it’s last legs and it looks like you’ll be a heavy user of the insurance cover.
British Gas Boiler Research
To put this Google search phrase into an SEO perspective, this is a minor search phrase for British Gas, it doesn’t even make the top 100 for google.co.uk searches for British Gas Boiler.
You can see there’s a fair amount of Google traffic for British Gas Boiler SERPs and what I assume are mostly plumbers are willing to pay over $15 (£11.50) for a single visitor searching Google for British Gas Boilers Review.
- Keyword – Search Volume – CPC
- British Gas Boiler Cover – 12100 – $1.08
- British Gas Boiler – 9900 – $3
- British Gas Boiler Service – 8100 – $1.68
- British Gas New Boiler – 6600 – $3.91
- British Gas Boiler Repair – 3600 – $2.89
- British Gas Boiler Replacement – 1600 – $3.87
- British Gas Boiler Deals – 1300 – $2.98
- British Gas New Boiler Cost – 1300 – $3.07
- British Gas Boiler Quote – 1000 – $3.85
- British Gas Boiler Replacement Rip Off – 1000 – $2.17
British Gas Customer Value
If a competitor plumber to British Gas could gain a fair chunk of those British Gas Google SERPs, it could mean a lot of business. For example British Gas Boiler Cover alone sees 12,100 google.co.uk searches a month, 10% of that traffic with a 1% conversion could be around 120 customers a month. To British Gas each of those 120 customers are worth at least £403 a year (almost £50,000 worth of business) if they signed up for their Boiler Repair with HomeCare Two Cover.
It can be quite lucrative targeting a competitors SERPs, even British Gas recognises this fact. Search Google.com for “British Gas Boiler Cover” and note the paid results (via Google AdWords ads), British Gas tends to be the top advert in Google. You’ll also see other well known brand names targeting these potential customers including Baxi and Aviva
Example British Gas Google ad:
British Gas Boiler Cover | HomeCare Offer
Rating for britishgas.co.uk: 4.1 – 14,059 reviews
Get One Month Free when you buy HomeCare Two-Four online before the 9th March. HomeCare Two starts from £15.58 a month. Buy today and get covered. Customer Helpline 24/7. Parts and labour included. Quick quote. Around 6,000 engineers. Unlimited call outs.
British Gas are probably willing to pay around 80p EACH for a Google user searching for “British Gas Boiler Cover”, so the businesses listed below who are also willing to pay for those potential customers are ‘blocked’: British Gas tends to be the first ad shown despite them dominating the organic Google search results (they have the top 6 organic results).
Always remember no business owns a Google search phrase including brand name SERPs, you can see from the British Gas Boiler Cover Google search that different brands (British Gas, Baxi, Aviva etc…) are fighting over these customers through paid Google ads. If your plumbing website has the SEO power to gain a competitors organic search results AND you can convert the traffic to customers (not much point if there’s no conversion), you should do so: as long as you don’t do anything illegal/unethical like trying to pass yourself off as another person/business etc… it’s all fair in business.
David Law
Website - SEO Gold Services
