NSW and Victorian electricity companies are failing to capitalise on the Internet to compete effectively, according to a new survey.
Conducted by Melbourne-based research group Global Reviews, the survey of nine electricity retailers was timed to greet new industry regulations that allow NSW and Victorian consumers to choose their energy supplier, and tested each company's capacity to meet customer needs.
After examining each company's Web site, e-mail feedback and phone service, only one company in the survey earned a customer satisfaction rating over 60 percent.
Only four of the nine companies surveyed bothered to respond to e-mail queries, and of those that did, two took over four days to reply.
Integral energy scored highest with a rating of 72 percent, the next highest competitors were Country Energy and TXU, scoring 57 and 55 percent respectively.
Godovich's summary of the findings paints a disappointing picture.
"No-one is really doing a great job and there's an opportunity there to break out of their situation and make an impact on the customer," he said.
Among some of the survey's other interesting findings, it noted that energy companies are giving a greater priority to improving brand awareness than educating consumers on the changes to the industry.
Global Reviews founder Adam Godovich believes that this is because energy companies aren't ready for the changes.
According to him call centre staff contacted during the survey stumbled when it came to answering queries about switching suppliers, some telling researchers to call back in a month.
Godovich believes that the companies want to compete as softly as possible and maintain the "status quo", contradicting the goals of the new regulations.
"They're trying to create brand awareness but avoid a price war," he said.
The survey gave a thumbs-down to the industry's efforts overall.
Only ActewAGL actually submitted a form via their Website (with a reference number). The rest were just glorified letter systems - none had on-line quoting systems and most if not all refused to send my quote back via email. Country Energy took all my personal data down, did a quick calculation then left me with my current supplier. Broken Hill company Australian Inland Energy - although slow off the blocks - seemed keenest to do business with small companies like mine. The other dinosaurs are doing very little to give quotes. I'm still waiting for Energy Australia and AGL to get back to me. More hassling on call-centres to get any information. Just in comparison, MayneGroup are using the Net to deliver X-rays within an hour via a login in their Website. That's cool!! May be some logistics companies need to start taking over power plants!!