Giant power retailer EnergyAustralia will go to surprising lengths to help struggling customers. Assistance might include replacing an energy-guzzling old washing machine with a new and efficient model, or providing a family with uniform vouchers to reduce the number of washes needed in a week, and even eliminating over-reliance on a tumble-dryer by clearing a backyard for easy access to a clothes line.
“Our goal is about closing the gap between their capacity and their consumption, and working with them on how to use their energy efficiently,” says EnergyAustralia head of customer solutions Andrea Linsenmeier.
Winner of the Financial Review Energy Awards in the Customer experience category, EnergyAustralia has a range of programs to help non-payers get back on track before the final humiliation of disconnection.
The EnergyAssist program provides tailored solutions, including payment plans, to help customers in financial difficulty. Multilingual support is available and those customer conversations centre on affordability, Linsenmeier says, with EnergyAustralia case managers telling customers: “don’t worry about what you’re using, what can you afford?”
In 2025, the program managed more than 240,000 customer calls and delivered $29 million in direct support.
Struggling customers can also be referred to potential government relief, such as grants and counselling, and EnergyAustralia offers payment-matching in some cases. Small business customers can be supported via the Rapid Business Assist program, which offers tailored payment schedules and cashflow assistance. In 2025, according to EnergyAustralia, eight in 10 customers on payment plans met their agreed payments.
Meanwhile, the company leads the energy sector’s Knock to Stay Connected cross-industry initiative, Linsenmeier says. This program entails in-person visits to households at risk of disconnection to ensure no one falls through the cracks because a bill was unread or a call unanswered. Knock to Stay Connected encompassed 46,300 home visits in 2025.
Linsenmeier says the program’s trained representatives work to build trust. “It’s a call without judgment”, she says. “It’s letting the customer tell us their situation, and picking up triggers.”
Half of those customers visited avoided disconnection and received support. “We’ll send out independent energy auditors who will go into the customers’ home and help them with the differential between power consumption and what they can afford,” Linsenmeier says.
Sometimes there’s a simple fix: customers might not realise that small fan heaters may be inexpensive to buy but costly to run, she adds. The auditors provide EnergyAustralia with information and feedback on how best these customers can be assisted. Nearly 600 energy efficiency audits were conducted in 2025, which resulted in 50 no-cost appliance replacements.
Meanwhile, the One Stop One Story program has been designed to ensure that customers in crisis will not have to repeat their story over and over, and EnergyAustralia works with Uniting and the financial counselling industry to make ongoing refinements to the program.
EnergyAustralia uses both internal and external data to predict when customers might be at a higher risk of missing payments. A third party holds all the data and Linsenmeier says this might include the customer’s payment history, as well as census information and credit misses on customer accounts.
“We don’t see the individual line items,” she says. “But [the third party] comes up with a score that says here is your customer’s risk score, that something could go wrong with this customer, and we engage with them proactively.”
Customers on assistance programs are not dunned for payment, Linsenmeier says, nor is their power disconnected.
Disconnections occur when customers won’t communicate, but even then every attempt is made to avoid it, she adds. “I think there’s anywhere from 14 to 19 engagement points before a customer will get disconnected,” Linsenmeier says.
A direct line to EnergyAustralia can be used by customers in trouble, and also by community groups or NGOs calling on behalf of customers, she adds. “We don’t challenge what an NGO is saying; they’re telling us the story.”