The cost of electricity was found to be a major cause of complaint among consumers. Photo / 123RF
The cost of electricity was found to be a major cause of complaint among consumers. Photo / 123RF
A Consumer NZ survey ranking the major power companies from best to worst for customer satisfaction has found Trustpower to be the worst performer.
The survey found that just 43 per cent of Trustpower customers were happy with the service they were getting from the company.
"Trustpower's rating was significantlylower than the industry average of 52 per cent. It's the worst score any of the big five power companies have earned in our past three surveys," Jon Duffy, chief executive of Consumer NZ, said.
Second to Trustpower, Contact Energy was ranked among the worst performers, scoring a below-average rating of just 45 per cent happy customers.
"43 per cent of our customers said they were very satisfied with us (that is between 8 and 10 on a scale of 0-10) and 75 per cent said they were satisfied. That meant 25 per cent of customers said they were neutral or dissatisfied, which is disappointing," Trustpower said in response to the survey findings.
"Trustpower customers predominantly use digital channels with 80 per cent not needing to talk to a team member, and we have third parties conduct external satisfaction surveys for the 20 per cent of customers who interact with us via our phone and webchat channels. While the most recent surveys we have are pre the COVID-19 lockdown, they consistently rated their satisfaction at 80 per cent +."
A spokeswoman for Contact Energy said the company was disappointed with the results.
"Our team across the country – including Levin, Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland – work hard to look after our customers, but we know there is always room for improvement," the spokeswoman said.
"We've asked Consumer for the Contact-related feedback so we can digest it and better understand the findings and what we can do to make things better."
The energy companies with the highest customer satisfaction scores were found to be the smaller operators.
Flick Electric got the highest rating with a satisfaction score of 76 per cent, followed by Nova Energy with 74 per cent and Electric Kiwi with 71 per cent.
The cost of electricity was found to be a major cause of complaint among survey respondents in Consumer's latest power company satisfaction survey.
"For one in three, household power costs were a big worry. Over the past year, 17 per cent said they had trouble paying their power bills," Duffy said.
That figure jumped to 45 per cent among customers of pre-paid retailer Globug.
The survey found that 12 per cent of consumers had overdue fees added to their bill as they could not pay on time.
The cost of electricity was found to be a major cause of complaint among consumers. Photo / 123RF
Duffy said late payment fees were often disguised as "prompt-payment discounts", with the discounts acting as a penalty for consumers who missed paying by the due date.
"Trustpower has a 15 per cent penalty if you miss paying by the due date. That's more than you could be charged by payday lenders, which have interest and fees capped at 0.8 per cent a day," Duffy said.
Four of the five major retailers were found to be using prompt-payment discounts. Only Meridian Energy has removed the use of them.
The Electricity Price Review, which reported to the government in May last year, recommended prompt-payment discounts be banned and that retailers were allowed to only charge reasonable late-payment fees.
Consumer's survey found 16 per cent of consumers missed paying their bill by the due date and that 17 per cent had experienced difficulty paying their bill in the past 12 months.
12 per cent of consumers said they had overdue fees added to their bill, 11 per cent borrowed money from family or friends to pay the bill and 6 per cent had taken out a loan to pay the bill.
