Mercury improves credit, communication processes

MEDIA RELEASE
25 June 2007

Mercury Energy improves credit management and customer communication processes

Mercury Energy today announced a range of new initiatives to improve its ability to identify and assist vulnerable customers who are medically dependent or suffer from financial hardship.

Mercury Energy’s redesigned processes, effective today (25 June), follow an extensive review of its customer and credit management systems.

Mighty River Power Chief Executive Doug Heffernan said the new processes, designed in consultation with a number of Auckland community groups and social agencies, build in a greater level of proactive communication and new check points to avoid unnecessary disconnections. They take effect from 25 June.

“We made a commitment that we would learn from the Muliaga tragedy and take quick action to improve our credit management systems. This has been our top priority and we are confident that our new procedures will do our part to prevent another similar tragedy occurring in the future,” he said.

“Customers with overdue accounts will benefit from a greater level of communication from Mercury Energy, as well as a number of new safeguards and more flexible systems to ensure where there is medical dependency or genuine financial hardship we have taken every possible step to avoid disconnection.”

New customer identification and assistance improvements include:

 All customers have been written to informing them they can register a medical dependency or financial hardship by contacting the Mercury Energy call centre.
 Overdue bills and credit letters have been redesigned to contain additional information on the steps to avoid disconnection.
 A personal phone call will be made to customers with overdue accounts in the week before scheduled disconnection to establish whether or not a hardship or medical dependency situation exists. No disconnection will take place if genuine need is established.
 The customer’s account history will also be reviewed and, if warranted, social agencies will be alerted, subject to Privacy Act requirements.
 New disconnection guidelines for contractors with an explicit instruction not to disconnect where any doubt exists in relation to medical dependency or financial hardship.
 Introduction of more flexible payment and part payment options, in conjunction with social agencies, on overdue power bills.

Mr Heffernan said a number of improvements had been made to Mercury Energy’s credit systems, including easier payment plans on overdue accounts and more checks and balances which would greatly reduce the risk of avoidable power disconnections.

“I believe these will have a very positive outcome. Better communication and more safeguards will offer improved customer assistance and protection which we expect will also lead to a reduction in the number of disconnections.”

Mr Heffernan said of the average 150 daily disconnections by Mercury Energy contractors, by far the majority were for safety reasons, for example where a property has been vacated and no new account established, and Mercury Energy’s review had confirmed disconnections for electricity bill arrears averaged about 35 per day.

“I think the public initially had the impression we were disconnecting far more people for overdue accounts than is the reality. But the positive development out of our review is that with these new measures we are introducing we feel we will be reducing the number of disconnections for overdue bills.”

However, to ensure that these new systems worked well also required the active co-operation of a number of government and community organisations.

“Financial hardship is a social problem and it requires a co-ordinated community response. It requires us all to play our part, and that includes not just the power industry but social agencies and government as well.”

Mr Heffernan said Mercury Energy had committed not to resume actual disconnections until it was satisfied the new customer safeguards were working.

Mr Heffernan said Mercury Energy expected to be in a position to resume the revised full credit processes including disconnections in the near future.

He added that Mercury Energy would also continue to work with the Electricity Commission and other industry groups on strengthened guidelines to assist vulnerable customers. Mercury would implement any agreed further customer improvements identified by the government review.

Mr Heffernan also confirmed that Mr Muliaga had contacted Mercury one month before his wife’s tragic death to try to arrange payment terms.

“Mrs Muliaga was the account holder but unfortunately although Mr Muliaga agreed at that time to talk to his wife to get her clearance, in the end this did not happen and we did not hear back from Mr Muliaga or the family,” said Mr Heffernan. “The sad reality is if things had worked out differently, we might have discovered the Muliaga family’s true circumstances and the subsequent disconnection of the Muliaga home might have been avoided.”

Mr Heffernan said under Mercury Energy’s new procedures contact centre staff were now instructed to seek more detail of medical or hardship situations when customers rang, regardless of whether they were the account holders.

“We will be asking the direct questions in future and making direct calls to try to avoid concerns about the Privacy Act provisions getting in the way of our discovering situations that might lead to the prevention of further avoidable disconnections,” said Mr Heffernan.

Mr Heffernan said Mercury Energy had taken the initiative to confirm that the only contact made by the family was by Mr Muliaga a month before the incident by releasing the summary of the call to the TV One Sunday current affairs programme. Mr Heffernan said Sunday had obtained Mr Muliaga’s consent under the Privacy Act to release the log.

“The information pertaining to Mr Muliaga’s 1 May call had already been made available to the police and so we also decided to release the log’s existence publicly as being in the public interest.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media