Hasta La Creative!

British Gas scrambled to apologize today after hosting a Twitter Q&A with its customer services director, Bert Pijls, on the very day that the energy company coincidentally announced a 9.2% price hike for customers.

The public response was just as bad as British Gas should have expected. The company tried to placate angry customers by issuing a hasty statement this afternoon: “Our announcement today is difficult news for customers We know people are worried and they want to talk about this If you are worried about covering the cost of your energy bill, please visit our website for information.”

But the move is unlikely to appease the legions of Twitter users who responded to British Gas’s previously planned appeal for questions between 1pm and 2pm this afternoon. By 3.18pm, there had been 11,466 tweets using the #AskBG hashtag, peaking at 12.54pm, with 160 tweets in one minute. Many of the messages were inspired by news of the price hike coupled with British Gas’s poorly-timed social media outreach.

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