Know your Customers + Communities

Dr. Lois Shedd from the Australian Energy Regulator took us through the Consumer Engagement Toolkit, a collaboratively developed resource designed to help energy businesses and stakeholders identify and assist those at risk. Troy Moulder from Horizon Power shared insights into their evolving Vulnerability Framework, which takes a holistic, data-informed approach to identifying and supporting customers in remote and regional Western Australia through staff training, community partnerships, and proactive engagement.

Both speakers reflected on the sector’s growing maturity in addressing vulnerability, highlighting a shift from compliance-based practices to values-driven strategies. They emphasised the importance of continuous improvement and adaptability as societal and market conditions change, reinforcing the need for inclusive, responsive, and collaborative approaches to consumer support.

In this insightful session we learned alongside experts from Better Together Collective and Carolyn Campbell-McLean of our Life Support in the Home Lived Experience Panel, discovering approaches to co-design and collaboration that place lived experience at the centre of energy solutions.

A transformational journey toward best practice customer and community engagement

Discover the expert-led discussions as part of the ‘Know your Customers + Communities’ Community of Practice’ that covers a range of engagement topics specific to the energy and water sectors. These sessions focus on insight sharing and building capability to better engage with customers and communities and ensure the ‘customer voice’ can be heard across all levels within businesses.

In December, we heard from Kellie King, General Manager Community & Corporate Services at Wannon Water about their transformational journey, starting in 2017, toward better practice customer and community engagement, in pursuit of becoming a truly customer centric organisation.

In 2023, Wannon Water won the IAP2 Core Values Organisation of the year for Australasia, and also took out the IAP2 Core Values Organisation of the year Internationally!

Wannon Water began by developing their own definition of community engagement and a new Community Engagement Framework and ‘toolkit’. Built on a commitment to best practice from their most senior levels, the framework is based on the IAP2 Core Values.

They delivered framework training across their organisation and designed a new “Wannon Water Engagement Cycle” (WWEC), a comprehensive annual program that informs their yearly strategic plan and provides iterative input to setting our five-yearly customer pricing.

In our October Know Your Customers + Communities – Community of Practice, we heard firsthand from financial counsellors across Australia about how customers are managing the cost-of-living crisis specifically their energy and water bills.

Firsthand insights into the cost-of-living crisis with Financial Counselling Australia (FCA)

Leading the discussion was Fiona Guthrie, the CEO of Financial Counselling Australia (FCA), the national voice for the financial counselling profession in Australia.

To gain insights into cost-of-living crisis across the country, the panelists included:

• From NSW: Vanessa Emergy, Financial Counsellor and Team Leader at Wesley Mission NSW, who represents FCA on the Australian Energy Regulator Consumer Consultative Group
• From QLD: Rose McGrath, Financial Counsellor at YFS QLD
• From Tasmania: Danielle Slade, Financial Counsellor at Anglicare TAS and President of the Financial Counsellors Association Tasmania
• From Victoria: Andrea Osborne, Financial Counsellor at Uniting VIC as well as participates in the Utilities Working Group for FCA.

What does a Financial Counsellor do?

Financial counselling is a free service run by not-for-profits, offering information, options and support in regard to debts.

One of the key benefits of a financial counsellor is they can provide information on benefits, concessions and entitlements including “concessions regarding energy, which is particularly important these days because a lot of people don’t know what they’re entitled to.”

A lot of financial counsellors are also trained in counselling and can offer emotional support.

“We provide information so customers can make informed choices and decisions and have ownership of their own situation. We don’t want to be telling them what they have to do, we want to give them the information so they can make decisions for themselves. It’s really important that they have control of their situation.”

What are customers experiencing when it comes to energy and water costs?

Taking the time to listen to what financial counsellors are learning from their casework can offer valuable insight into the financial challenges people are facing. Below, the panel explores what they’re seeing firsthand when it comes to why customers are not able to pay their energy and water bills.

The gap between energy and other life essentials

Danielle Slade, who works for the National Debt Helpline 5 days a week, explains that “the biggest thing we’ve seen is extraordinarily large debts,” where in some cases, people can barely cover their current usage let alone also contribute towards old energy bills.

Danielle continued on to provide insight into the essentials that help create a comfortable life, including:

1. Rent or housing
2. Food
3. Transport
4. Medications
5. Telecommunications
6. Power

“I say power last because [in the eyes of the customer], that’s the only bill this fortnight that I can skip if I just don’t have enough money. If I don’t pay my rent, I get evicted. I have to eat. I can’t walk my children to school if it takes us 2 hours to get there. I can’t not take medication. So, the only thing that’s left that I can skip this fortnight is power. So, a lot of people leave it to that 3 month bill and then we get a debt that’s just so unmanageable.”

The link to housing and water costs

There has also been recent casework where customers are struggling to pay their water bills.

Rose McGrath explained, “For renters, they pay the landlords directly. They don’t have a direct billing relationship with the water company or with the council. So, water arrears are very much tied up with rent arrears and because rents have increased so much, people are really struggling to pay their water and rent. As a result, partly, they are being evicted for non-payment of their water.”

Rose goes on to explain that in some cases, there is such high demand for rental subsidies and rental arrears, it takes up to 2 months for people to receive them where they can be evicted within that time.

“With water, there are no hardship provisions like there is in energy. There is no hardship framework and there’s no concessions for renters.”

What can the energy sector do to help with the cost-of-living crunch?

When it comes to supporting customers with their energy and water bills, the panel provided insight into what’s currently working and what could be improved to help customers regain control of their financial situation.

• Continue educating customers on ways to reduce their power bills, where Andrea mentions that once customers are given this information, “12-24 months down the track, we had observed their energy bills and they dropped hundreds [of dollars]. Just a bit of information and they were able to change their ways and reduce their bills.”
• Continue energy audits for vulnerable customers as well as further to current government initiatives, there could be potential to replace faulty appliances causing higher energy bills.
• More reference to the National Debt Helpline to ensure customers know where to go for financial help (for example, as shown in the Keep the money. It’s yours. National concessions campaign).
• Matched payments, where possible, as Danielle explained that customers start to think “the energy provider is going to help me pay off my debt?” which helps to shift the mentality to ‘we’re in this together’ (acknowledging this may not be the case for all retailers).
• Potential to introduce debt waivers, including an automatic debt waiver when there’s family violence.

A dive into financial and mental wellbeing with Beyond Blue

In our August Know Your Customers + Communities – Community of Practice, we heard from Beyond Blue and how their Services Guide for Financial and Mental wellbeing can be used by energy & water customer teams to better support customers experiencing financial and mental health stress.

Beyond Blue is an Australian, not-for-profit organisation, whose vision is to help all people in Australia achieve their best possible mental health. Representing them was Irene Verins, their Wellness and Prevention Lead. She oversees development of research relating to Financial and Mental Wellbeing, and the design of tools and resources to support the community. Irene also oversees the Parenting and Mental Health portfolio.

Irene explained the purpose of the session was two-fold:

1. to introduce Beyond Blue’s research, tools and resources and explore how they might be useful to your sector
2. to build understanding between the energy, water and mental health services sectors.

What is financial and mental wellbeing and what does the research tell us about it?

Financial wellbeing is being able to meet current and ongoing expenses and commitments, being financially comfortable to be able to make choices to allow one to enjoy life, feeling secure about the financial future and having resilience to cope with financial adversity.

While financial challenges refers to any financial circumstances, thoughts and feelings that may negatively impact financial wellbeing (for example financial hardship, debt, unemployment, loss of income, low income)

In turn, mental wellbeing reflects a state of wellbeing in which every individual realises their own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to their community.

While mental health challenges is an umbrella term that covers diagnosed mental health conditions, as well as any other mental health issues that may negatively impact mental health but may not meet the criteria for a diagnosed illness.

Beyond Blue’s recent Money and Mental Health Report found people experiencing financial challenges were at least twice as likely to experience mental health challenges and vice versa. We found that those people most affected by financial and mental challenges were:

• young people
• women
• First Nations
• small business owners.

What are factors that influence financial and mental wellbeing?

• Relationships – People who felt they had no one to lean on are more likely to experience financial and mental health challenges. And withdrawal from community and social interactions is a common response to financial challenges.
• Life transitions – Young adults transition from school to university or their first-time job, transitioning out of work and into retirement. If support is not available, transitions can quickly become risky moments.
  Cultural narratives about success – often lead to expectations on what being financially stable symbolises. The environment you live in, or the expectations surrounding your circumstance may create a culture that contributes to self-blame or feeling ashamed. Job and income loss may lead to shame that you are not meeting expectations of managing your financial position and your family responsibilities. This was prominent for small business owners.
• Stigma – plays a significant role in both mental and financial health and inhibits help-seeking. So often we hear that people feel enormous shame when they talk about financial difficulties, and this can deter them from seeking help when they need it most.
• Adverse life events – are often outside your control and can be coupled with trauma. These may include divorce, separation, becoming widowed, job loss and family violence. These situations can lead to unexpected and rapid changes in income and financial stability.

This is important because a recent unpublished report has found that 37% of Australians reported that cost of living was the issues having the greatest negative impact on their mental health.

How can the Services Guide for Financial and Mental wellbeing help?

Developed in partnership with Financial Counselling Australia, this Guide provides practical advice on how services from both energy + water sectors, can provide greater support to customers.

We are not asking the energy and water sectors to become mental health counsellors or financial councillors. The aim of this Guide is to build the awareness and capability of energy + water sectors to work with mental health services, showing how they can both work more closely together. This flow on effect of bringing sectors together will drive action on support and referral options.

The Guide will help you:

• Depict signs & behaviors of people in financial or mental hardship
• Apply models and approaches in assessing hardship
• Drive action on support and referral options.

A key tool in the Guide that you can have on your desk as a reference when you are meeting with clients is this continuum. It will help you evaluate a person’s financial and mental wellbeing. It starts with ‘In crisis’ and moves through stages until we get to ‘Thriving’.

Financial and mental wellbeing journeys are non-linear, meaning they can shift and change over time. That’s why managing financial and mental wellbeing together is important at all stages of the continuum. Whichever stage is identified by a customer along the continuum, there are broad actions and support you can provide in subsequent pages of the services guide.

Many older people have AND are carers and may have another person who regularly acts on their behalf. Older people are more likely to struggle with smaller print, quiet audio and long wait times. They are also more likely to be unable to live without utilities!

The Energy Charter’s Better Practice Customer Engagement Toolkit acknowledges the robust processes businesses need to understand their customers and communities. The Toolkit provides practical strategies for energy businesses on ways to incorporate feedback into their decision making.

Essentially, all energy businesses are here to serve customers and communities (whether they are residential, small & medium business, or large commercial and industrial). To deliver energy products and services in a way that meets customer and community needs and expectations, we first need to understand: what are those needs and expectations?

That’s why engaging with customers and communities is critical.

In our June Know Your Customer + Communities – Community of Practice, we heard from Elise Lloyd and Sharmilla Zaluski from the Council of the Ageing (COTA), South Australia (SA) and The Plug-In who work with Australians aged 50 and over in the design of products and services and the delivery of research.

Who are the subject matter experts?

Elyse is Acting Research Manager at the Plug-in. She is a psychological scientist and data analyst with experience in market and social research across an array of sectors. She has previously worked as a specialist in ageing research, focusing on quantitative methodologies.

Sharmilla is an Associate at The Plug-in. Sharmilla is an original member of The Plug-in start-up team and now contributes her expertise on a project basis as an advisor, co-researcher and workshop facilitator. She has previous experience working in policy, community engagement and customer service roles in local government.

Why is it important for energy businesses to engage with Older Australians?

Australia has an aging population with 34% aged over 50 in 2020 and 21% of Australians expected to be 85 or over by 2066.

Older Australians are diverse. For those over 65, 37% were born outside of Australian and 18% speak a language other than English at home. More than a third live in regional or remote areas. The aging experience for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population is different from that of the non-indigenous Australians with only 16% aged over 50 (compared to 34% of non-indigenous Australians).

How do you effectively engage with Older Australians?

• Have a clear purpose! Older Australians need to know what you need from them.
• Be inclusive. Make sure you engage and provide opportunities for older Australians to be part of the engagement in an appropriate way (see more on this later).
• Reflect the diversity of older Australians. One size does not fit all. Older Australians are multi-lingual, live in cities and regional areas, and are identified as older over 50 in First Nations communities.
• Work with older Australians not for them, provide processes where they can participate in the design, delivery, and outcomes of your engagement with them.
• Build relationships. It can be difficult to get communities on board if there is not an existing relationship with them. Consider how you will build trust with communities and the organisations who represent & support them.
• Be respectful. Be mindful of the language that you use particularly terminology that can be invertedly ageist, for example instead of a dementia sufferer use strength-based terms such as a person with dementia OR person living with dementia OR person with a diagnosis of dementia.
• Reflect, adapt and improve. Close the loop when you engage with communities to check in on what you heard and feedback how the engagement has been incorporated into the product or service.

What considerations and adaptations are important when reaching out to older Australians?

Digital access and literacy vary. Most older Australians are online (93% of 65+ age group have internet access at home) however, they still experience low digital literacy which impacts how they use digital tools. For example, many use social media (43% on FB or Instagram) but are unable to use apps. It is important to offer offline alternatives and make sure it is easy to find these alternatives. This includes options for a third-party such as a family member or carer, to assist.

Consider older Australians preferred methods of communication and engagement. Conversations are often much easier and preferred by older people. It is also important to consider if your customer contact options are potentially discriminatory. If your service has limited its methods of contact i.e., an online contact form only, this can open your service up to increased risk of regulation or action by consumer advocacy bodies.

There are current examples of consumer action against the rental and property sector (who only offered applications online), airlines (who provided age-based discounts to passengers because they required less support) and television suppliers in Australia (who supplied TVs without audio descriptive technology).

Older people are more likely to have physical health issues and therefore will have carers or family to support them. Be aware that another person may act on their behalf, consider if your processes accommodate the carer. Consider how your service uses small print, quiet audio and if customers experience long wait times, these barriers will impact the service you can provide to older people.

Context vs. Content: when designing products and services for our customers, context expertise (or lived experience) is just as important as including content expertise.

The Energy Charter’s Better Practice Customer Engagement Toolkit acknowledges the robust processes businesses need to understand their customers and communities. The Toolkit provides practical strategies for energy businesses on ways to incorporate feedback into their decision making.

Essentially, all energy businesses are here to serve customers and communities (whether they are residential, small & medium business, or large commercial and industrial). To deliver energy products and services in a way that meets customer and community needs and expectations, we first need to understand: what are those needs and expectations?

That’s why engaging with customers and communities is critical.

In our May Know Your Customer + Communities – Community of Practice, we looked at a case study that involved the energy sector co-designing a lived experience advocacy program with Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCOSS) for customers who experience low-income.

The panel included:

• Dr Lucy Mercer-Mapstone; Community Voices Lived Experience Program Coordinator at the TasCOSS, who was key in the development of the Community Voices Program – a lived experience advocacy program which trains and mentors community members to influence a services’ systems, policies, and decisions to become more equitable for people living on low incomes.
• Jarrah Keenan, who is a Community Voices Program Partner. He shared his lived experience in creating change, making sure services and decisions which affect Tasmanians on low incomes are truly fit-for-purpose.
• Amy Abraham who in her previous role at Aurora spoke about how they embedded the lived experience into their work and the steps it took to make it happen.

Why is lived-experience important for energy businesses?

When designing products and services for our customers, context expertise (or lived experience) is just as important as including content expertise – and it should be paid for accordingly. People with lived experience can help shape the policy decisions and processes that impact them, ensuring better customer uptake of what is delivered.

To support this, businesses and organisations should ensure they have the right capability to do so and are aware (and adhere to the principles) of safe and respectful engagement with people with lived experience and their advocates. TasCOSS has developed resources and provides mentoring to deliver engagement that enables a safe space.

Jarrah Keenan provided some insight on what it means to be a Community Voice Partner. His experience with government included a project for communities who experience low literacy. His key takeaways include:

• Support people from within the community to carry out engagement and to ask the community for their input. This will enable people feel safe in their own environment and in turn, provide honest insights.
• Be aware that those with lived experience may not feel comfortable providing their input within a group environment. Consider one on one engagement to enable a depth of insight from individuals.
• Engage after the engagement! This will help show how the original engagement has been included and will support further feedback – it’s worth the additional cost! Jarrah noted this step restored the community’s trust in the government.
• “That they (the government) made the effort to engage with those that were ‘hard to reach’ and that they were genuine in seeking and incorporating their input, this made all the difference.”
  
  The process is important. Community Voice Partners receive excellent training, but the biggest motivator Jarrah explained, “is that our opinion is valued, and we feel heard. It is an excellent innovation in how people can contribute and be heard by government, business and other organisations.”

Amy Abraham talked about her experience working with Aurora. The program was a new approach to engagement specifically to engage with those members of the community we had not worked with before in the co-design of our programs. Key insights include:

• The process helped us recognise our unconscious bias and made it clear that we needed people with lived experience to be part of the co-design process.
• For example, the introduction of a ‘quick exit button’ for people who experience family safety issues, was included in the design of services and support for customers once we listened to people with lived experience of family violence.
• Reflect on the capability and maturity of your organisation in making the engagement safe for people with lived experience. Consider if it is better to partner with expertise to set this up to ensure it is done well.
• Bring others along on the journey: validating problems and solutions along the way. As Amy explained, “it’s about doing the right thing, but it is also about designing a more efficient and sustainable process and experience for people that can solve the problem.”

‘Hard to reach’ or ‘easy to ignore’? That’s the question communication, engagement and customer specialists need to ask when they use the phrase “hard to reach”. Cohorts of the community that require us to be a little more proactive, or adjust our practices to accommodate participation, are all too often excluded from engagement and the opportunity to contribute to decision-making processes on issues that affect them.

In our first Know Your Customers + Communities session for 2023, we explored the topic of inclusion in engagement, particularly with vulnerable or marginalised groups within our community.

Based on her many years of experience as an engagement practitioner and facilitator, Nicola Wass, Director Engagement at RPS Group shared practical guidance on how to create more inclusive and accessible engagement programs that support people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to participate, learn, contribute and belong.

Eve Rodrigues, Manager Customer and Community at Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) shared this write-up on her take-aways from the session.

To kick off, Nicola reminded us about the importance of inclusive engagement.

She pointed out that often, those that ‘easy’ to engage are negatively motivated, or already have strong views about the engagement topic. Therefore, if the aim is to capture a broad set of perspectives that represent your customer base, or local community, it’s critical to purposefully engage with diverse groups. Importantly, this includes those from disadvantaged and minority communities who offer unique lived experience perspectives and whose voices are often underrepresented.

One key takeaway is that it may not be enough to simply engage with customers or community members that have a diverse range of backgrounds and lived experience.

In some cases, asking diverse groups to participate in the same engagement process together introduces barriers to participation. Participant biases, judgements or lack of insight into the lived experiences of others can lead to participants being reluctant to contribute, or at worst feeling that they are not psychologically, emotionally or culturally safe.

One option, particularly for short engagement processes, where there is not sufficient time build the foundations of an inclusive group culture, is to offer tailored engagement opportunities for people that have identified as belonging to a specific group, or who have the same communication or accessibility needs.

These more individualised processes are often valued by participants, who feel supported being able to share their perspectives with others who have experienced similar situations. A good example of this is the mini-panels that Yarra Valley Water ran as part of the engagement for their pricing submission (p24), or TasNetworks Youth Panel for the North West Transmission Developments (pictured right).

Nicola also pointed out that good facilitation is a crucial part of the engagement process. An experienced, independent facilitator can help to ensure that your business communicates in an unbiased and inclusive manner, including ensuring that questions are not leading.

She explained that participants should always know: there are no right or wrong answers and they are there because their perspectives and lived experience is valued.

Critical Success Factors

• Active, targeted recruitment: It’s important to develop relationships with advocates, networks and community groups that work with diverse groups in advance of any engagement. They are an excellent source of knowledge and it’s important to invest in these relationships outside of a particular engagement process.
• Audience-centered communication: This includes considering what will attract participants to the process, as well as how to carry out the engagement in a way that creates a safe space and provides the best environment for the particular group. For example, the use of diagrams for those who have low literacy, or providing accessible material well in advance for those who are vision impaired.
• Fair financial recognition: Financial compensation is essential to get an unbiased view and ensure that we properly recognise the value of participant time and context expertise.
• Accessible, inclusive participation: Means anticipating and listing to individual needs, prioritising support, and always checking-in. For example, do they need a support person, a scribe, transport assistance or child-minding support to ensure they are able to fully participate?

Delivering on an organisational commitment to ‘best-practice’ in accessible and inclusive engagement can be challenging. However, it is critical to build organisational capability, bring in experts when needed, and avoid ‘tick the box’ engagement programs at all costs. Poor engagement can be harmful to participants and damages trust and relationships communities and advocates.

Lastly, it’s important to demonstrate the positive impacts of each person’s contribution. One of the most powerful drivers for individuals to be involved in engagement is knowing that they made a difference to others in their situation or community. Feedback or “closing the loop” is an essential part of the process.

“Conflict is simply energy – the energy caused by a gap between what you want and what you are experiencing. This energy can be misused in ‘drama’ or harnessed to create something positive and useful.”

This is just one of many insights human-centered communication expert Ilona Vass shared at our final #BetterTogether Know Your Customers and Communities event for 2022.

With ‘conflict’ a common feature of infrastructure projects, it’s essential we build capability around compassionate, human-centered conflict strategies.

In the session, Ilona introduced several handy ideas to help us conceptualise, understand, and apply compassion in conflict situations.

Here’s our wrap up of the top tips from the session:

Tip 1 – Remember there is a purpose in conflict: to ‘create’

We have conflict because, in the creation process, we bring a diversity of opinions and perspectives, which can lead to misunderstanding. Reminding ourselves that conflict serves a purpose is the first step in taking a more positive approach to managing it.

Tip 2 – Positive and negative energies

If we think about conflict as a gap in energy – we can then differentiate between the positive and negative energies being created. When energy is used as a weapon, the result is unhelpful ‘drama’, where those involved need to be right, justify their position and intention and stay emotionally detached.

When conflict is met with compassion, those involved connect at a human level, invite collaboration, listen with empathy, and aim to move forward with mutual agreement. Applying a compassionate approach is not only more likely to resolve the conflict, but helps to avoid ‘explosive’ responses and results in a much more positive experience for those involved.

Tip 3 – The 4 C’s to work towards conflict with compassion

When approaching conflict with compassion, there’s four ‘C’s’ to work toward – ‘Courage’, ‘Clarity’, ‘Conversations’ and ‘Consistency’:

1. Courage – we must be willing to move away from an emotionally detached position and address the emotions sitting at the heart of the problem.
2. Clarity – it’s critical to stay clear on your message and avoid confusion by changing positions in ‘the heat of the moment’. By being transparent, we allow other party the opportunity understand our perspective and consider our suggestions for an agreeable solution.
3. Conversation – we must make time to have the conversations that allow us to listen deeply and find mutually aggregable pathways forward. Resolutions cannot be found without a willingness to keep the conversation going.
4. Consistency – the above C’s need to be applied consistently. Remaining clear, being consistent in our willingness to converse and staying courageous, is crucial to avoiding drama-fuelled, adversarial communication.

Tip 4 – Open communication

This can be challenging, especially in situations where the other party is aggressive, however, open communication is a great tactic for keeping conversations on track toward a solution. In the frame of conflict communication, openness means being emotionally transparent and creating a safe space for others, including by maintaining the mindset that all parties are worthwhile. Empathising with other parties by sharing a similar personal experience, or showing that you resonate with their experience is one way to keep a conversation open.

It’s also essential to validate the other person’s emotions, including by asking questions around the feelings that are being felt and talking time explore them together. It can be helpful to actively disclose your own emotions also, for example, by letting the other person know how you are feeling about the conversation. Being open doesn’t mean being vulnerable in a way that makes you feel unsafe, or in a way that is not relevant to solving the specific problem at hand – it simply means being willing to connect with the other person on a human level

So, why does this matter?

Inevitability, infrastructure projects across the water and energy sector will involve conflict because of the creation process. As the energy sector embarks on a once-in-a-generation infrastructure build to transition to renewables, community and landholder engagement is increasingly in the spotlight. With hundreds of conversations occurring with impacted landowners, host communities and advocates every day, it’s essential that those responsible have the skills and know-how to manage conflict with compassion.

Positive conflict strategies not only reduce the inevitable costs of miscommunication and increase the likelihood of reaching a mutually agreed solutions faster, they also materially reduce stress and improve the experience for all involved.