Latest / Best of Business / Paul Fuge: Consumer NZ spokesperson on the number of Kiwis switching power companies

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Paul Fuge: Consumer NZ spokesperson on the number of Kiwis switching power companies · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
• 0:12
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  Speaker 2: Now there is new data out showing the number of
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  Speaker 2: customers that the electricity retailers are losing and gaining. Genesis
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  Speaker 2: Energy was the biggest loser according to the Electricity Authority
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  Speaker 2: data hemorrhaging thirty five thousand customers in the year to June.
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  Speaker 2: Contact was the biggest winner, gaining an extra twenty thousand customers.
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  Speaker 2: Paul Fuse is the manager of power Switch for Consumer
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand and with US Evening, Paul Good Evening, what
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  Speaker 2: happened to Genesis, Well, the main.
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  Speaker 3: Thing with Genesis is they got rid of their subsidiary brand,
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  Speaker 3: Frank Energy, which was kind of their budget budget brand,
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  Speaker 3: very popular, you know, and a lot of customers. We're
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  Speaker 3: happy with that and elected to move retailers at that point.
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  Speaker 2: And Contact why did it win so many It got.
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  Speaker 3: Some pretty sharp offers in the market. What you find
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  Speaker 3: with the market is it's quite volatile, and so retailers
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  Speaker 3: will come in out of equiosition mode, you know, as
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  Speaker 3: they procure electricity on the wholesale market at good rates,
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  Speaker 3: they'll seek to you know, balance their books up by
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  Speaker 3: acquiring customers, and Contact went into acquisition mode with some
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  Speaker 3: pretty sharp offers over the last year. But that's swinging
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  Speaker 3: around again now. In the last month, looking at power
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  Speaker 3: switch data, we see Genesis coming back through. In fact,
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  Speaker 3: they were the second highest with power switch switches in
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  Speaker 3: the last month. So it does change around quite a
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  Speaker 3: bit depending on where each retailer is at in terms
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  Speaker 3: of their you know, their overall position in terms of
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  Speaker 3: what they're buying on the wholesale market and what they
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  Speaker 3: can sell.
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  Speaker 2: Now, something like four hundred and fifty thousand customers switched
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  Speaker 2: in the last year. Does that kind of undermine that
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  Speaker 2: narrative that there isn't that much competition in the electricity market.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of those will be what's called move and switches,
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  Speaker 3: and that's that's where people move house. It's recorded as
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  Speaker 3: a switch, even if you stay with the same customer.
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  Speaker 3: So around it's around three of switches will be moving
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  Speaker 3: switches roughly. But but yeah, but still we are seeing
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  Speaker 3: switching picking up and we are seeing some seeing some
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  Speaker 3: really positive signs over the last month or so of
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  Speaker 3: competition heading up, which is really positive. We've had a
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  Speaker 3: couple of years now, where you know, as you know
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  Speaker 3: that the wholesale market has been very high and that's
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  Speaker 3: that's made retailer is a bit nervous around taking on
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  Speaker 3: too many new customers too quickly. But what we've seen
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  Speaker 3: is wholesale market the prices are coming down quite a bit,
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  Speaker 3: and that's making retailers sort of, you know, perk up
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  Speaker 3: a little bit. And we start just starting to see
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  Speaker 3: signs of retailers making some pretty sharp offers, which is
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  Speaker 3: really positive.
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  Speaker 2: Hey did you see them? In the last week, I've
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  Speaker 2: been getting a fair number of emails and text from
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  Speaker 2: people who've had letters from Genesis Energy saying the discounts agone.
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  Speaker 2: Are you across this?
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  Speaker 3: Well, no, I'm not across that in particular, but but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I think you know retailers. I mean, the overarching messages
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  Speaker 3: is retailers are changing their positions all the time, and
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  Speaker 3: that why it's important for customers to sort of shop
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  Speaker 3: around quite a lot.
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  Speaker 2: But I would imagine, don't you think, Paul, that this
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  Speaker 2: would precipitate quite a bit of movement, Like as a result,
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  Speaker 2: I'm a customer of Genesis, I got the letter, I
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  Speaker 2: am now going to go onto power Switch and have
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  Speaker 2: a look if I'm on the best deal, and I'd
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  Speaker 2: imagine quite a few people would do that, wouldn't they.
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  Speaker 3: Well, surprisingly not. The big challenge we have is customers
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  Speaker 3: in general. Electricity customers are quite apathetic and disengaged and
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  Speaker 3: mistrustful of the industry. And thirty percent of customers think
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  Speaker 3: that all retailers charge about the same anyway, and that's
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  Speaker 3: simply not true. But yeah, and that's you know, a
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  Speaker 3: lot of gent tailors and retailers will trade off that
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  Speaker 3: knowing that they can do things, and customers will grumble
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  Speaker 3: but not necessarily take action. And that's what we're trying
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  Speaker 3: to change through power switches, to sort of get customers
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  Speaker 3: to take action, because that's what will really drive electricity
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  Speaker 3: prices down. If customers on mass start switching and changing
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  Speaker 3: provider regularly, it will make retailers really sharpen their pencil.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'll do my bit for you. Paul Hey,
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  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, appreciate it. Poul Fuje, Consumer New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand Power Switch Manager.
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