Meridian's Customer Service team, based in Christchurch, looks after all of our residential and small business customers – around 180,000 of them.

Each day, the team has (on average) over 2,500 contacts with Meridian customers. Around 1,800 of those are with customers calling into our 0800 customer service number, with the rest a mixture of responding to letters, emails and faxes, or calling customers directly.

A specialist contact centre company (Teletech) provides our Customer sService team. They are very much part of the Meridian team, sharing office space in our Christchurch office.

Customer Service team manager Rick Jones says customers can call anytime between 7:30 am and 7:30 pm. His 80 team members work in two main shifts – 7:30a.m. to 4:00p.m. and 11:00am to 7:30pm. Peak time for calls is around 3:30 in the afternoon - "after the kids have been picked up from school," says Rick.

Customers call for a range of reasons. Among the most common are:

• Customers calling to provide their own meter readings (to avoid estimates)
• Customers making arrangements for moving to a new address – for example, arranging final meter reads or changing their account to a new property
• People looking for information on different payment methods to make it easier for them – for example, we can offer direct debits that tie in with their salary or wage payments
• Faults or problems with their electricity supply – we work with local distribution or ‘lines' companies on our customers' behalf
• Account maintenance or queries – customers requesting a copy of their bill, for example, or wondering why a payment hasn't shown up in their account (very often it's because the payment has been made too late to be included, and it will show up on their next statement).

Customer Service team members (both full and part-time staff) have four weeks of intensive, full-time training before they start working with customers, plus on-the-job training to ensure they have the skills and knowledge to provide great service.

Rick Jones says providing a good experience for customers is paramount. "Our focus is on quality of service. It's really about listening to customers and understanding what they need at that particular moment. Many of our customers are really busy people who just want information as quickly as possible, so that's what we give them.

"Other customers are looking for advice and suggestions on how to save on their electricity bills. We take every opportunity to give customers the most for their ‘Meridian buck'. We can talk to people about simple things they can do to save money and direct them to other resources such as Meridian's ‘Switch It Off' website" says Rick.

"We're also proud to reinforce Meridian's ‘wind and water' generation philosophy. Customers really like the fact that Meridian generates electricity only from renewable resources," he says.

Most of the team are full-time staff, but some work part-time. Rick says parents and students make up most of the part-time staff because the hours suit them.

The Customer Service team provides a great grounding for other roles and opportunities within Meridian. Rick Jones says around 30% of the roles in the new Meridian Retail Directorate have been filled by people moving from the Customer Service Team.