Eon has already installed just under 100,000 smart meters. It believes that ensuring consumers are on board is critical. With that in mind, last April it established its Smart Metering Centre of Excellence, which aims to provide the best customer experience of smart metering, both during installation and in terms of continuing care. The approach is having results. The following accounts from customers and staff show that reaction has been positive. Eon is learning extensively from its early experiences and feeding the results back into its programme.
Colin Pemberton – Eon customer
Colin is a pensioner living in a semi-detached home in Derbyshire. He had a smart meter fitted in June 2011, having responded to one of Eon’s letters. “I was rather reckless last year
and ended up with a debt on my energy bill,” he says. “So the idea of a free smart meter allowing me to see how much energy I use was very appealing.”
Colin has a smart energy display in his kitchen, which is connected wirelessly to his dual-fuel smart meter. The display shows a green, amber or red light depending on the amount of energy being consumed. “It’s very easy to understand, as everyone knows the traffic light system,” he says. “If the light goes into the red, then you know to take care with what you use.”
By pressing a button on the display, Colin gets an instant reading of his rate of electricity and gas consumption, while a graph shows the rate of consumption by week, month or year. Meter readings are automatic.
“The saving has been good over the past six months, with my bill reduced by £22 per month, and I’ve also had good service from Eon. When I contacted them recently, I was called back within half an hour and told I qualified for Eon’s WarmAssist tariff, which means I now receive a further discount on my electricity and gas bills.”
Eon has also provided Colin with advice on ways to save energy – for example, information about insulation and turning lights off when not needed. “These are all things we should be doing,” he says. “Looking at all the doom and gloom in the papers, everyone is in the same position, but smart meters give you the information to make sensible decisions about things you could switch off. They are a necessity.”
Laura Short – customer service agent, Smart Metering Centre of Excellence, Eon
Laura is one of about 100 highly trained agents providing the first point of call for any customer interested in smart metering.
“We handle calls on anything and everything,” says Laura. “This morning I had customers booking appointments; this afternoon I had a lady concerned that when the engineer arrived they might not be aware her husband suffered with dementia.”
Laura stresses the importance of being able to explain smart metering in a way that is pertinent to the customer. “They’re worried about bills and saving money, so it’s important to make it relevant to their concerns. We also find customers don’t always realise they no longer need to send a meter reading. So we have to ensure they understand the smart meter is read remotely.”
Another common concern is that smart meters are being forced on to customers so the government can spy on them. “They often refer to scare stories in the press and want to know if their information is secure. So I explain that smart meters are about ensuring sustainability rather than being a way for people to find out what you ate for dinner!”
Paul Matthews – smart metering technician, Eon
Paul has been with Eon for 33 years and is responsible for ensuring the installation of a customer’s smart meter runs smoothly. “The installation phase is one of the first experiences a customer has with their new smart meter, so it’s vital that the process goes well,” says Paul.
Installation typically takes about two hours, which includes safety checks and running through the process with the customer. “We’ve learned how important it is to do the little things well, like putting down dust sheets, as well as the big things like explaining how the meter and smart energy display work in detail. We switch appliances on and demonstrate how the traffic lights change according to consumption.”
All of Eon’s installers are trained to the highest standards to ensure that customers feel that smart metering is a positive step from the very first day of installation. “After all, if the customer doesn’t know how to use it, the smart meter won’t help them manage their energy,” Paul says.
“And from a personal point of view, the way our technicians have risen to the challenge with gusto has been fantastic. They love being able to interact with customers and we’ve had a fantastic response so far. Everybody is looking at the cost of energy and anything we can do to help put people in control of their energy spending is a good thing.”
Simon Perkins – head of the Smart Metering Centre of Excellence, Eon
Simon has worked his way through the ranks at Eon via customer operations and commercial roles and now heads the Smart Metering Centre of Excellence.
“Smart metering provides a great opportunity for Eon to re-engage with customers,” says Simon. “If we do the basics brilliantly and make the experience consistent, from when the customer talks to an adviser in the office through to the engineer in the field, they know they’re dealing with a joined-up company. This is how we’re delivering on our goal of providing the ‘wow experience’.”
Eon has trained its agents to deal with the end-to-end process, which ensures customers receive an excellent level of service and that they are talking to people who understand smart meters specifically. “Service levels are also higher because we constantly evaluate where accounts work well, where problems occur and resolve issues directly.”
Smart metering has driven a downwards trend in customers contacting Eon when a bill arrives. “This is because they’re getting an accurate meter reading, so they’ve got more confidence in that bill,” he says.
According to Simon, regaining customer trust has been key. “We’re trying to build a customer-centric exchange process. When they call us to arrange a meter exchange we spend time understanding their needs and do everything we can to deliver that exchange in a quality way at first time of asking.”
Engendering a culture of excellence within the centre has also been central to Eon’s smart metering success. “I’m passionate about creating a great place to work and recognise that building the Smart Metering Centre of Excellence based on the ideas of everybody involved is essential. Every single member of the centre has a project under way to help us improve the customer experience we give.”
Jean Fiddes – head of customer, value and learning, Eon
Tasked with ensuring customer engagement, Jean has been at Eon for ten years and involved with its smart metering customer programme from the beginning.
“We live and breathe smart metering, but what hit me was that customers had a limited idea of what smart metering was,” she says. “This is why we use simple messages that explain the benefits they bring – accurate billing, automated readings and that for the customer, their energy usage will now be visible, which puts them in control.”
Jean says the customer response to smart meters has been fantastic, with customers in later life being the most responsive so far. Indeed, Eon has been working with Age UK to target these consumers, although the majority of marketing has been via direct channels such as phone calls, letters and email.
“Customer experience is central to everything we do,” says Jean. “Much of the feedback we’ve received has highlighted the importance of respecting our customer’s property and that our engineers must take the time to help users understand how to operate the smart energy display.”
With the mandate starting in 2014 and finishing in 2019, Jean stresses the importance of balancing the need to raise awareness against meeting demand. “We are gathering all the learnings we can now, building scalability and targeting areas where we can meet demand early to bring the benefits to our customers.”
Don Leiper – director of new business, Eon
Don is the board member responsible for Eon’s smart metering customer programme and plays a key role in driving developments in energy efficiency and distributed generation.
“Where Eon has been actively communicating the benefits of smart meters to customers, there has been a remarkably high take-up,” he says. Although consumers still need prompting to take the first step, Don sees smart metering as the industry’s opportunity to raise the quality bar. “We can completely re-engineer our customer-related processes, such as how we go about changing supplier, being able to shorten the lifecycle of change and by aligning electricity and gas processes so customers don’t get confused.”
The Smart Metering Centre of Excellence is already providing valuable lessons. “These range from the proposition you use to engage customers and all of the elements required for an
effective field-based rollout, through to recognising how business processes have changed,”
Don says. “We have to take advantage of this experience now, agree standards and continue to drive change through the smart programme at
national level.”
He also highlights that the consumer relationship with energy is changing. “Smart metering is a critical step in a journey that ultimately is about educating consumers on how energy works, what they use it for and helping them make decisions that put them in control.”
Jim Hayward of Baringa Partners has been working on UK smart metering for nearly five years. In 2010, he joined Eon to operate as its smart metering customer programme director.