CONSUMER AND INDUSTRIAL RETAIL
Q&A:
AWARDWINNING CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT Powerlink was recently announced as the winner of the 2021 Energy Network Consumer Engagement Award for its engagement approach on its 2023-27 revenue determination process. Jointly run by Energy Networks Australia (ENA) and Energy Consumers Australia, the award recognises excellence in consumer and customer engagement by an Australian energy network. We asked Powerlink General Manager Communications, Customer & Engagement, Gerard Reilly, to provide some insights into the utility’s engagement mindset and approach. Q: What were Powerlink’s goals in terms of customer engagement? Does the business feel that those goals were achieved? A: The success of our engagement for our revenue determination was built on the strength of Powerlink’s business-asusual approach. We established our Customer Panel in 2015 and have worked closely with panel members over the last six years to create an environment of trust and knowledge sharing. Showing our vulnerabilities as a business is important. Our engagement approach is built on having conversations with customers on topics where we don’t know the answer, and then use their input to improve the decisions we make. For our 2023-27 revenue determination, we set a clear goal to deliver a Revenue Proposal that is capable of acceptance by our
(Left to right) Paul Simshauser (Chief Executive Powerlink Queensland), Merryn York (ENA judging panel member), Gerard Reilly (General Manager Communications, Customer and Engagement), Jenny Harris (General Manager Network Regulation), Kiara Bowles (External Communications Specialist), Robyn Robinson (ENA judging panel member). Photo credit: All is Light Photography
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customers, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) and Powerlink. To achieve this we knew our customer engagement would need to step up to a new level. We were extremely pleased when both the AER, in its Draft Decision, and our Customer Panel stated that we had met that capable of acceptance goal. I think we have changed the way that network businesses view engagement for Revenue Proposals and moved the capable of acceptance goal from being aspirational to achievable.
Q: How did Powerlink integrate customers, market bodies, and board and executive teams within the business into the revenue determination engagement process? A: The key learning from our previous revenue determination was to better involve our customers in developing our approach to engaging with them – a co-design process. Our commitment to a co-design approach and achieving capable of acceptance was embraced and encouraged by our Board and Executive. Our engagement started almost two years before our Revenue Proposal was due for submission with a co-design workshop held in May 2019. This was the first time a network business codesigned its engagement approach for a revenue determination. We workshopped our engagement approach, scope, techniques and evaluation processes. Setting a clear engagement scope was particularly important. We wanted to focus engagement on the items that really mattered – and could be influenced through customer input. We had customers plot aspects of our revenue determination on a graph against two axis – one was that elements impact on Maximum Allowed Revenue (in other words the amount that consumers pay Powerlink over the five-year regulatory period), and the other was the ability for that element to be influenced through the Revenue Determination process. www.energymagazine.com.au
