AWARDS FINALIST: Mercury

Last year was a huge year for Mercury’s retail business, as a team of up to 300 worked to integrate the people, processes, systems and offers of the existing business with those of the newly acquired Trustpower retail business.

The aim of the integration project was to leverage the strengths of the respective offerings and provide greater benefits for Mercury’s enlarged customer base.

Mercury customers gained access to more telecommunications services, including broadband, mobile, and landline, while Trustpower users benefited from the Mercury rewards programme and improved access to usage data.

Mercury says it simplified its plans to focus on those customers said they needed and valued the most. 

It introduced a FibreLite broadband plan for smaller households with lower data needs, and removed data caps from its copper and fibre plans.

It also added a SmoothPay option, which allows customers to pay a regular fixed amount year-round, so they build up credit for the high-demand winter months.

Popular

The changes proved popular. Within two months of the brand change to Mercury in June 2023, the firm’s new app was downloaded 103,105 times by former Trustpower customers.

Within two weeks of the launch of the new chatbot TILI, it was getting about 500 interactions a week, without agent support. Trustpower’s previous bot, Toni, used to get about 125 interactions a week.

Mercury is now the country’s largest multi-product utility provider, with more than 860,000 connections across electricity, gas, broadband and mobile.

It took the opportunity that came from the Trustpower acquisition to redesign its customer billing process, incorporating customer insights to ensure that bills are clear, concise and easy to understand. 

It also continued to innovate to find ways to better serve customers.

Among its customer care initiatives, Mercury highlighted the two-year Winter Energy Study conducted in partnership with Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities. This study – involving almost 800 Mercury/Globug customers – explored the benefits of capped bills during the winter months, providing valuable insights into how stable, predictable energy costs can benefit customers. 

Last year, the firm also made permanent the "Here to Help" programme it piloted in 2022 to support financially vulnerable customers.

The company has translated its payment support webpage into Māori, Mandarin, Samoan and Hindi – and the programme had had more than 3000 visits by the end of April.

Technology

Mercury also continues to seek ways to improve customers’ energy efficiency, shift loads into off-peak periods and reduce energy costs without disrupting their home lives. 

In the June quarter, the company trialled a smart-charging system for electric vehicles in order to improve the efficiency of charging and avoid peak periods.

Two-way communication between the EV and the grid allowed the customer to set the default time the EV needs to be ready and leaves the rest to Mercury.

The system is integrated in the vehicle, so requires no specialist household charging or control equipment. Customers could also use the Mercury Charge app to initiate immediate charging.

The company is also trialling controls on hot-water systems to shift load out of peak periods.

The Energy Retailer of the Year award category is sponsored by EDMI.