| CALD communities
Statistics
Complaints received
This year at least 5% of all complaints were from customers who identified as CALD, up from 3% the year before.
Of these 394 customers, 39% of complaints involved retail competition issues, which is a significantly higher result than the overall average. At least 50% of these complaints came from outer Sydney and at least 39% from inner Sydney.
This year EWON received or made 235 calls using an interpreter. The most common languages requested and complaints received were from Chinese speaking customers (60 complaints) followed by Arabic (44 complaints) and Vietnamese (33 complaints).
| Issues raised by CALD customers |
| Retail competition |
39% |
| Billing |
30% |
| Credit |
14% |
| Customer service |
14% |
| Supply |
1% |
| Provision |
1% |
| Land/general |
1% |
Feedback from outreach activities
Our casework experience and feedback from our outreach activities indicates that some CALD customers:
- do not find it easy to contact their provider
- have difficulty understanding their bills, and
- lack access to information in their own language.
Many customers and their families have expressed serious concerns about marketers signing up a person to a new energy contract when it is clear they do not speak English very well and informed consent is an issue.
To complement our outreach program, we increased our range of translated factsheets to cover 17 languages and conducted a radio campaign.
Outreach to communities
Following on from the recommendations of our 2005 Customer Survey, we focussed our targeted outreach program on culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) customers, with the aim of increasing awareness of our services.
By working with key agencies within various communities, we have been able to arrange information sessions (with the assistance of interpreters) to cater for
their members whose first language is not English.
We also partnered with migrant resource centres in Campbelltown and Parramatta, to present forums covering topics such as customer assistance programs, EAPA (Energy Accounts Payment Assistance) vouchers, energy and water saving, and EWON's services.
Case study :: Account transferred without consent
Mabruk was door knocked by an energy marketer about a contract. He said he wasn't interested because he was happy with his current provider.
A few weeks later he received a welcome pack and a bill from a new retailer and when he called to question this he was told he had entered into a contract.
After a number of calls to the retailer he was finally sent a copy of the contract, which had his wife's signature. Mabruk was surprised because his wife couldn't speak English. His wife told him the marketer returned after Mabruk left the house and asked her to sign something but she thought it was a survey.
When Mabruk received a high bill for $1500 he called the retailer and was told if he didn't pay his power would be cut off. Mabruk was not happy with the retailer's response and called EWON for help.
We contacted the retailer who acknowledged that their marketing was inappropriate. The retailer transferred Mabruk's account back to his original provider without penalty and made a customer service payment to Mabruk.The retailer also informed EWON that they were reporting this case to IPART as a breach of the Marketing Code.
Case study :: Incorrect spelling causes upset
Javier contacted EWON with the help of an interpreter. He said he had called his provider some time ago about correcting the name on his account but they didn't make the change.
He had also asked to have the pension rebate backdated on his account but this hadn't happened. Javier then received a disconnection notice for $99.
We spoke with the provider who said that they could not validate Javier's pension rebate and had notified him of this by letter. They confirmed they had changed the spelling of his surname, but not his first name. We suggested to the provider that the validation process had failed because of the incorrect spelling of Javier's name on the account.
The provider agreed to backdate the pension rebate on Javier's account which put his account $90 in credit.
Javier was pleased to have the pension rebate applied and confirmed his account details had been altered correctly. We advised the provider that Javier's details were correct.
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