Meridian Retail Director Steve Ferguson talks about Meridian’s customer initiatives.

Our customers are our business – so we are always looking to make sure we offer products and services that add value and make their lives easier. In 2006/07 we continued to expand our range of offerings in new and sometimes groundbreaking ways.

For customers who want to purchase environmentally sustainable products we offer a real choice – carbon neutral electricity. Meridian is New Zealand’s only certified supplier of carbon neutral electricity. It’s a tangible example of our commitment to sustainable business practices.

We are continuing to develop our products and services for the rural sector - one of the most important drivers of New Zealand’s economy. Meridian Irrigation Manager, which offers large irrigators the potential to reduce costs and get more value from their irrigation spend, was launched during the year. We also published the first issues of Seasons, a newsletter with information and articles of specific interest to rural customers.

During the year we undertook text and email campaigns. This activity included an email campaign about our Business Online tool and a text campaign that supported our sponsorship of the TV3 WA$TED programme. These campaigns reduced paper use and offered our customers a different way of communicating with us.For a sustainable future we're looking at how different communication channel scan be used. We also continued to run customer promotions which supported our environmental values and helped customers use energy more efficiently.