Aurora admits response not up to snuff
CROMWELL
CAN do better — that is the report card Aurora Energy has issued itself after alleged poor communication during an almost sevenhour power cut in Cromwell on Wednesday evening.
The cut coincided with coverage of the US presidential election and the first State of Origin 2020 match, and Cromwell residents graded Aurora’s response as F.
The lines company has promised an immediate review of its communication.
Residents cited being directed to an afterhours service when they called, and slow updates online.
About 6.45pm power cut out for 1640 customers, before being restored for most about 1.15am on Thursday — some customers had it restored at 5.30am.
Aurora Energy general manager customer and engagement Sian Sutton promised a review.
‘‘Our phone communication needed to be improved on the night and we have plans under way to review this immediately.
‘‘We are aware that our communication can always be better and we have several improvements under way including more proactive management of our social media channels, a call centre review, a website refresh, and proactive stakeholder and community relations plans for each of our regions.’’
Customers could expect to receive an Aurora Energy community update inserted into local newspapers from this week, which would provide a regular overview of its key activities, she said.
‘‘With that said, these things take time and the team is working hard to make these improvements.’’
Ms Sutton said on the night of the outage team members worked late to keep the community updated across social media and the website, including regular posts, direct contact with key stakeholders, website updates to the outages page, and regular contact with its afterhours provider.
Improvements to the communication plan had been submitted to the Commerce Commission, she said.
‘‘This year we put forward a plan to improve our customer experience as part of our CPP [customised pricequality path] application to the Commerce Commission [and the] draft decision will provide us more certainty in regard to our plans.’’
The Commerce Commission will release its draft decision for its assessment of Aurora Energy’s investment plan which addresses historic underinvestment on Thursday.