OUR STRATEGY Connectivity
Customer Advisory Board (CAB) We continued to engage with consumers through our Customer Advisory Board. Last year, eight members out of the 12 from the original committee returned for another term. Since then, we have introduced two new members to the team. This year, we have involved the CAB in testing a number of products such as the new Vector website. We also asked them to contribute to our pricing survey. Our successful schools programme This year we continued to visit schools to teach students about sustainability and electricity safety to help them act responsibly around power lines. Thirty-six schools were visited during the year, and our team talked to 7,619 students. Murals We revitalised our mural programme to make it easier to seek permission to paint artwork on our assets to beautify communities. This year, three new murals were completed in Avondale, Kingsland and Ellerslie. Auckland Council partnerships In addition to the innovation partnerships we are undertaking to pursue our sustainability goals, we are also working with communities to encourage greater energy efficiency. Vector continues to work closely with Auckland Council on the challenges facing the region. This year, we entered into a multimillion-dollar partnership with the Council, with the support of Entrust. In March Vector and Entrust, along with Auckland Council, launched the Energy Efficient Communities Project, which will deliver hot-water heat control units, LED lightbulbs and energy advice to homeowners in Papakura and Takanini. Local organisations, including schools and community facilities, will also receive a Tesla Powerwall. In May 2017 we also announced that we would be lighting up the Auckland Harbour Bridge using permanent LED lighting powered by 630 solar panels and a large-scale 500kW/1MWh energy storage battery. The planning and installation of the lights is expected to take several months once council planning, consenting and NZ Transport Agency approval processes have been completed. This year, Treescape, which is 50% owned by Vector, also won a contract for much of the Council’s arboriculture work.
an unplanned outage. Where possible, we now text customers in areas affected by a full feeder outage to tell them what has happened. Customers can now receive a text within five minutes of the fault occurring. Doing this has cut calls to our contact centre significantly. In April 2017 we updated our app to make it easier for customers to see current outages, planned and unplanned, and to report an outage to us. Some 70,000 customers have downloaded the app. These customers can now receive progress updates. Finally, recognising that some people still prefer to deal with us face to face, we appointed two full-time community engagement managers to get out into the field and support residents and businesses during outages. Our goal in doing this is to minimise the number of complaints and/or lack of understanding from our customers over work in progress by doing our best to listen to them and provide answers. Charging stations The Electric Vehicle (EV) app we launched this year makes charging smarter, providing directions to EV chargers nationwide, making them easier for customers to find. The app offers a real- time update on the status of rapid chargers, and filters searches for charging stations by port type, type of charger and availability. We’ll continue adding new stations to the app as they open. New online connection service In November 2016, we launched an online self-service portal to make it faster and easier to request a new electricity connection. As a result, customers can now request new network connections at their convenience rather than calling our contact centre. They can also create a login to track progress on multiple connection jobs. We have also reduced the average time to connect by an estimated two days. Campaigns and social media One in five power outages is caused by trees. This year, our Keep the Lights On campaign informed people about this and offered them a significant discount on tree trimming to keep their branches away from our network. The campaign ran through April and May using mainstream media and digital channels and reached more than 700,000 Aucklanders. To support our new approach to working with lines that are de-energised where possible, we ran an advertising campaign to talk through why there would be increased outages on our network. Our 2017 Lifestyle survey shows that seven out of 10 customers support our approach in the name of safety. We also introduced a new social media strategy which will enable us to listen and respond to what our customers are talking about. Since we launched our Facebook page, our content has been viewed by over 700,000 people. Our Twitter following has increased from 2,000 followers in March 2016 to more than 4,700 followers a year later. Our LinkedIn presence has also built a strong following. Over the last 12 months our content has been viewed over 58,500 times. These new and improved channels have meant new ways for customers to contact us, and for us to communicate with them.
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