Customer complaint issues

Customers identified 7,201 different issues associated with the 3,800 complaints opened this quarter. This was a decrease of 3% on the previous quarter when 7,423 issues were identified, and a decrease of 0.8% on the same quarter last year (7,256).

Most issues decreased in line with the overall reduction in complaints. There was a slight increase in billing error complaints by 8.5% (179 up from 165) and general energy/water complaints by 16.3% (157 up from 135).

Payment difficulties complaints increased by 31.6% (250 up from 190). This may be related to the lockdown that commenced for parts of NSW in June 2021. The Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) Statement of Expectations ended on 30 June 2021 but, to handle ongoing temporary lockdowns, the AER has a set of Standby Statements which will apply when deemed necessary. The Standby Statements currently apply to the areas of NSW in lockdown. It is expected that the increase in payment difficulties complaints will continue in the current quarter, as the lockdown remains in place in July 2021, with more restrictive rules.

Table 2 – Top 10 issues April to June 2021, including previous four quarters

Note: the total number of issues recorded may be greater than the number of complaints received.

Core issue in a complaint 

In July 2020 EWON began a new data collection process which identifies the core issue in a customer’s complaint. In each complaint EWON receives there may be more than one issue but there can be only one core issue. 

There is a difference in the number of cases received (3,800) and the number of core issues (3,827). This is because core issues are only assigned when a case is finalised and cases opened in previous quarters can be shut in the current quarter. 

Of the 250 complaints where payment difficulties were identified, 107 (42.8%) had this as a core issue. For disputed high bills, 833 complaints out of 1,130 (73.7%) had this as the core issue.

Most core issues declined or remained steady. Complaints with payment difficulties as the core issue increased by 24.4% (107 up from 86) compared to the previous quarter. Complaints with general energy/water as the core issue increased by 18.0% (157 up from 133).

Despite three different customer service issues being in the top ten issues this quarter, there are no customer service issues in the top ten core issues. While dissatisfaction with providers’ customer service influences most complaints raised with EWON, it is rarely the main reason a customer approaches EWON.

Table 3 - Top 10 core issues