The price reset is a platform to meaningfully engage with a broad spectrum of customers in our distribution area, including customers who experience vulnerability.

We want our engagement program to position Jemena at the forefront of delivering innovative customer engagement to a diverse spectrum of customers.

We seek to partner with a full range of our customers, including our friendly energy savvy customers right through to customers who have low energy literacy or face barriers to engaging with energy. 

Our engagement program aims to meet the specific needs of our electricity customers, taking into consideration: 

• the rich diversity of our customers
• learnings from previous price resets
• the unique requirements, issues and challenges our customers face
• our desire to engage with customers experiencing vulnerability

• dedicated opportunities to create synergies with the other Victorian Electricity Distribution Businesses (VIC DBs) for joint engagement, enabling consistency and efficiency in our engagement approach across all Victorian networks.

Through this price reset, our goal is to understand our customers’ views and build the energy capability of customers who need it the most.

It is with this sentiment that we will engage with customer groups who face barriers and may have access issues to our services.  

We aim to capture the views of customers that—without specialist engagement—their voices would not be heard. Where customers are unable to provide their voice, we will seek out their advocates or service providers.

Our engagement design and delivery will be underpinned by energy industry best practices and our engagement values and principles. We will act as the conduit for our customers’ preferences and take their collective voice to the AER through our proposal. We acknowledge to do this we need a partnership approach with our customers and to listen to the voices that are heard the least, and engage with the customers that need us the most.

Our engagement principles to achieve this are to:

• build a deep understanding of our customers and their views
• shape our regulatory proposal based off customers’ views

• build customer trust in our regulatory proposal
• support growth of Jemena’s customer-focus culture.

This means our engagement design and delivery will be informed by:

• Energy Charter: to ensure our proposal is closely aligned with the charter principles
• AER Better Resets Handbook and the Early Signal Pathway: ensuring we meet and exceed regulatory expectations and invite customers to shape our proposal.

• AER Game Changer: to ensure we connect, engage and understand customers experiencing vulnerability, providing specialist engagement to gain their views.
• Human-centred design: to ensure we place people (customers) at the centre of our engagement and draft proposal.
• IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum: to guide us to achieving high levels of public participation on the spectrum and be clear with customers of our goal and commitment to them.

An expert energy panel that discussed complex issues and provided clear, independent advice and recommendations that have the long-term interests of customers in mind.

Meet the Energy Reference Group members

A People’s Panel which included approximately 50 diverse customers who make up a statistical representation of customers in our network area.

Listen to the People's Panel and read their recommendations to Jemena.

Six customer voice groups, including up to 18 members, met four times.

These groups included customers with different lived experience.

This included customers with disability, customers who experience mental health difficulties, customers from multicultural communities, young people, First Nations Peoples, and seniors.

Each group had a senior leader from Jemena to help champion the group to connect, listen and understand their needs. The groups each provided advice and insights to the People’s Panel for their consideration in making recommendations given their unique needs.

Meet the different Customer Voice Group members here and find out more.

Conducting a bespoke survey of 1,000 residential customers from across our network for the price reset to gain a broad spectrum of views and data points.

Joint engagement sessions with Victorian electricity distribution network service providers across the topics of framework and approach, affordability and equity, reliability and resilience, network tariffs and customers experiencing vulnerability.

Small business forums, surveys and in-depth interviews/meetings with diverse small to medium sized businesses across our network.

Surveys, large user forum and in-depth meetings to engage with large commercial customers.

Survey housing developers and designers of houses to understand their needs.

Bespoke engagement with electricity retailers and retailer bodies, including retailer forums, surveys, in-depth interviews/meetings and engagement with customers affected by family violence.

Surveys, in-depth interviews/meetings and Local Council Forums to understand the needs of local councils and the local communities they service.

Involving our Customer Council members, including providing them ongoing oversight of the engagement program and a dedicated workshop on the price reset.