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EWON Insights Jul-Sep 2021
- Customer complaint issues
Customer complaint issues
Core issues
Each complaint EWON receives has a core issue – the driver of the complaint – and there may be associated issues. We now ensure that we report by core issue as well as capturing associated issues. In this quarter EWON closed 4,053 and received 4,087 complaints which in addition to their core issue, also raised over 3,000 associated complaint issues.
Table 2 – Top 10 core issues cases closed July to September 2021, including previous three quarters
| Primary issue | Secondary > tertiary issue | Jul-Sep 2021 | Apr-Jun 2021 | Jan-Mar 2021 | Oct-Dec 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billing | High > disputed | 1,124 (27.73%) | 833 (21.77%) | 897 (23.51%) | 1,215 (29.60%) |
| Billing | Estimation > meter access / not read | 163 (4.02%) | 116 (3.03%) | 141 (3.70%) | 163 (3.97%) |
| Credit | Payment difficulties > current / arrears | 152 (3.75%) | 107 (2.80%) | 86 (2.25%) | 74 (1.80%) |
| General | Energy / water | 139 (3.43%) | 157 (4.10%) | 133 (3.49%) | 145 (3.53%) |
| Billing | Account closing > error* | 89 (2.20%) |
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| Billing | Error > other | 88 (2.17%) | 90 (2.35%) | 104 (2.73%) | 59 (1.44%) |
| Billing | Backbill | 85 (2.10%) | 73 (1.91%) | 75 (1.97%) | 90 (2.19%) |
| Billing | Refund or credit > delay / error / form | 84 (2.07%) | 91 (2.38%) | 91 (2.39%) | 100 (2.44%) |
| Billing | Tariff > rate | 79 (1.95%) | 49 (1.28%) | 50 (1.31%) | 52 (1.27%) |
| Billing | Other | 78 (1.92%) | 62 (1.62%) | 77 (2.02%) | 49 (1.19%) |
| Total issues per quarter | 4,053 | 3,827 | 3,815 | 4,105 |
*New issue 1 July 2021
*There is a difference in the number of cases received and the number of core issues. This is because core issues are only assigned when a case is finalised and cases opened in one quarter can be closed in a later quarter.
Complaint issues
Customers identified 7,148 different issues associated with the 4,087 complaints opened in the quarter. This was a decrease of 0.7% on the previous quarter when 7,201 issues were identified, and a decrease of 9.2% on the same quarter last year (7,868).
High disputed billing complaints increased by 24.2% (1,403 up from 1,130). This could be attributed to customers starting to receive their winter bills, as well as the impact of customers being home more and using more energy due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions in NSW.
Complaints about estimated bills due to the meter not being read increased by 24.0% (382 up from 308). This likely reflects the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on distributors’ ability to obtain actual meter reads from late June 2021 onwards.
Payment difficulties remained similar at 258 compared to 250. This is likely due to the protections of the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) standby Statement of Expectations which applied to Greater Sydney for the whole quarter and other areas of NSW for portions of the quarter. Payment difficulty complaints may start to increase in the current quarter, as COVID-19 restrictions ease from October 2021 and the standby Statement of Expectations is lifted two weeks after stay-at-home orders end.
EWON’s complaint issue categorization was updated, taking effect on 1 July 2021. The changes were made to capture emerging trends, delete obsolete issues and modify some existing issues. Overall, the number of complaint issues decreased from 165 to 148. Billing > opening/closing account has frequently been in the top ten issues, generally making up around 5-6% of the issues per quarter. This issue was replaced from 1 July 2021 with four new issues around opening and closing accounts to gain better insights. Billing > account closing > error is one of these more granular issues.
Table 3 – Top 10 issues, complaints received July to September 2021, including the previous four quarters
| Primary issue | Secondary issue > tertiary issue | Jul-Sep 2021 | Apr-Jun 2021 | Jan-Mar 2021 | Oct-Dec 2020 | Jul-Sep 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billing | High > disputed | 1,403 (19.6%) | 1,130 (15.7%) | 1,204 (16.2%) | 1,600 (20.1%) | 1,717 (21.8%) |
| Customer service | Poor service | 680 (9.5%) | 644 (8.9%) | 698 (9.4%) | 733 (9.2%) | 634 (8.0%) |
| Billing | Estimation > meter access / not read | 382 (5.3%) | 308 (4.3%) | 340 (4.6%) | 405 (5.1%) | 428 (5.4%) |
| Customer service | Failure to respond | 320 (4.5%) | 296 (4.1%) | 347 (4.7%) | 382 (4.8%) | 344 (4.4%) |
| Credit | Payment difficulties > current / arrears | 258 (3.6%) | 250 (3.5%) | 190 (2.6%) | 193 (2.4%) | 207 (2.6%) |
| Billing | Error > other | 167 (2.3%) | 179 (2.5%) | 165 (2.2%) | 106 (1.3%) | 139 (1.8%) |
| Billing | Backbill | 149 (2.1%) | 157 (2.2%) | 165 (2.2%) | 183 (2.3%) | 140 (1.8%) |
| General | Energy / water | 140 (2.0%) | 157 (2.2%) | 135 (1.8%) | 150 (1.9%) | 180 (2.3%) |
| Billing | Account closing > error* | 139 (1.9%) | - | - | - | - |
| Customer service | Incorrect advice / information | 134 (1.9%) | 205 (2.9%) | 242 (3.3%) | 232 (2.9%) | 217 (2.8%) |
| Total issues per quarter | 7,148 | 7,201 | 7,423 | 7,943 | 7,868 |
*New issue 1 July 2021
Note: the total number of issues recorded may be greater than the number of complaints received.
