We’re involving customers in future plans so we can continue to improve experiences with our electricity network.

Customer experience includes:

• communicating proactively with customers about outages, maintenance, and other disruptions
• empowering customers to manage their electricity usage through education and self-service tools
• providing courteous and professional service to all customers, regardless of their background or circumstances
• providing accurate and transparent billing and payment information
• ensuring customer privacy and data protection
• collaborating with other stakeholders, such as regulators and local authorities, to ensure the best possible service for customers
• continuously seeking feedback from customers and using it to improve service quality and customer satisfaction
• timely response to customer enquiries and complaints.

To help us, we’ve set up a panel of customers and other stakeholders to guide our work. Over the next couple of years, we will continue to talk to customers and communities on our network through a range of research and engagement activities.

Our customer experience panel is made up of customers and stakeholders from across our network – from experts on energy, representatives from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds, to ‘everyday’ customers – are engaging with us as part of a wider Electricity Distribution Price Review (EDPR) engagement program.

The customer experience sub-panel meets quarterly and guides us on:

• identifying problems customers face then developing commitments to address them
• understanding how different groups experience energy services, such as rural or small business customers
• diverse customer groups’ experiences with energy e.g., rural customers; customers experiencing vulnerability
• reviewing and updating our customer service incentive program, to encourage us to deliver efficient and improved customer service and respond to evolving customer needs
• developing tools to keep us accountable and ensure we deliver on the promises we make.

Our customer experience panel members are:

• Emily Peel (Lead)
• John Mumford
• Jeff Nottle
• Mark Grenning
• Piang Lillian
• Tony Robinson
• Johnathan Kneebone

During our customer experience panel meetings, we will be engaging with our panel members to answer the following focus questions:

1. CSIS: How might we design a CSIS that delivers maximum benefit for customers?

2. Planned & unplanned outage experience: How might we minimise the adverse impacts of outages on customers?

3. Fit-for-purpose support for customers with specialised support needs: How might we ensure fit-for-purpose service for all customers, including those with specialised support needs?

4. Customer communications & education campaigns: How might we meet customers' preferences on the form, content and frequency of communication, as well as educational material that improves customer experience?

5. Customer connections: How might we design connection processes that meet evolving customer expectations, across all our customers?