We are not the kind of people to blow our own trumpet, but we do work hard and we do appreciate a pat on the back ocassionally. Leave your comments here about the good stuff you have seen Powershop do.
Blog Topics
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- Competition (1)
- Development (1)
- Forum (5)
- Ask the crew (2)
- Bouquets (1)
- Brickbats (1)
- Enhancements (1)
- Industry Bollocks (8)
- Life at Powershop (11)
- News (18)
- In the media (9)
- Same Power Different Attitude (3)
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Recent Comments:
- Melanie Cameron: Hi Tom, we’re in discussions with them at the moment, so hopefully we’ll be showing...
- Tom Butlin: Any idea when Metrix meters will show heatmap data? I love the daily data as it shows my family the...
- Ari Sargent: @Robert: Undoubtedly our price increases have had an impact, however despite these we remain competitive...
- Robert J. Hall: I note the current part of your growth curve has flattened out, seems about the reciprocal of the...
- Felix: Hi Ari, it’s good to know you’re keeping up with the developments. Looking forward to seeing what...
so far so good….
March 12th, 2009 at 11:22 amHave to admit I was impressed that one of your techies rang me after a problem with Firefox accessing your website (the padlock wasn’t displayed) and left me his mobile # for any further problems. Thanks, impressive service.
Now, if you could only run your website through a spellchecker … ‘Ambassadors’ has two ‘s’s, ‘bouquets’ has a ‘u’ …
March 17th, 2009 at 9:56 pm@Jon Bryce:
Happy to be of service.
… and thanks for the spell check – both errors have now been fixed
March 17th, 2009 at 10:03 pmFirst impression gained from talking with Powershop representative is that if all staff are as intelligent and capable of exercising reason as the one I spoke with, then the company is certainly in good hands.
Let’s face it. I can go through one day without food, but not power.
I accept power savings are currently ‘eaten up’ with food price increases.
However, the fact that I, as consumer, is given the ‘power’ to view what is being consumed on a daily basis far outweigh any such frustration on ‘no savings’ as the bottom line.
Good on whoever came up with this concept.
It can become extremely tiring and stressful at being held to ransom by previous power providers who are in the habit of threatening ‘disconnection’.
It is hoped Powershop will never let ‘power’ get to its head and always instead bear in mind that one is more than capable of eating cold baked beans.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:38 pm@Shari:
Thanks.
I must say I am not a big fan of cold baked beans, but you can rest assured that we have our feet firmly on the ground and will continue to strive to deliver only power to the people!
April 18th, 2009 at 9:32 pmI’m impressed by the quick, helpful answers I had to entries in these news/blog items, and after becoming a customer that has carried on through the secured “contact us” email panel (or feedback option).
April 29th, 2009 at 10:08 amI hope this will continue when customer numbers take off.
Thanks,
Michael
Some positive feedback here: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2009/05/04/shopping-for-electricity-powershop/
May 4th, 2009 at 11:24 amI’m real happy with Powershop. Easy change-over, and the website has come along in leaps and bounds. I worked out that Contact was charging me around 26.5 cents a unit once the daily charge and GST was factored in. Easy to save money here. Thanks.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:50 pm@RDee:
Thanks
May 17th, 2009 at 11:12 amI couldn’t get a promo code for new customers working and emailed Powershop. Within 2 hours they’d credited my account. You’ve now got a happy and loyal customer who keeps telling cooworkers and friends about Powershop. Great service!
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm@Andrew:
Pleasure!
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:31 pmLoved the queer power special for queen’s birthday – touche.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:17 pmAri …my powershop account is now 4 months old and my commment still has to be ..a big thumbs up.
Im saving money, ive got a real handle on consumption so im pretty dam happy.
Cheers and thanks
July 5th, 2009 at 5:56 pm@Janos:
Glad to hear it.
July 5th, 2009 at 8:57 pmHi Ari
It’s six months since I have signed up to Powershop. I never imagined buying electricity could be so interesting!
Can I ask how many customers you have now and how’s the business going?
One of the best point about Powershop is the direct communications, whether on this blog, on Twitter, or on the various blog posts around the internet. I hope you can keep up with it as Powershop grows!
August 11th, 2009 at 10:44 pm@Felix:
I must admit when I started this I didn’t expect buying power to ever be interesting, but I too have been pleasantly surprised.
We have been growing steadily and now have 3,000 customers.
We (I) will certainly try and keep on top of direct communication with customers across all communication channels.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:48 pm3000…still a long way to go with an estimated 1.6 million households in NZ!
http://www.stats.govt.nz/publications/populationstatistics/dwelling-and-household-estimates.aspx
Keep up the good work and it will happen though. I’m certainly recommending you by word of mouth and I imagine others are too.
August 12th, 2009 at 2:20 pm@Pete:
aahh yes, but why stop there – world domination is where it’s at!
… and thanks for the recommendations.
August 12th, 2009 at 9:08 pmwell i must admit it has been a very interesting experience. I have convinced some mates to join up. Personally its a no brainer. its cheaper, you are more in control and you make the decisions and you are more conscious of power usage because of the constant interaction rather than the painful prod of a once a month bigger than texas bill.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:36 pm@bustedblonde:
we’re stoked. another happy customer.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:38 pmA month in, and just stoked I made this choice. First time home owner and was a ‘mare as movers, lawyers, bank, all dropped the ball at various points. Not Powershop. Great service/relationship-building; first from Ari on the blogs, then on the email, and the smooth, quick signup/startup. And really looking like some significant savings too. Gettin high on all this…CONTROL. Big ups to the P-shop crew…
September 21st, 2009 at 8:01 pm@Nick:
Thanks, truly glad to hear it.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:18 pmAwesome. Saved $330 in 5.5 months switching from Empower ($1433) to Powershop ($1101). I’m in Christchurch so I will be getting the 20% weekend rebate on top of those savings soon. An average of $60/month is pretty cool… September was quite a warm month and I still saved $40. Thanks Powershop
October 15th, 2009 at 8:55 pm@Jason:
Our pleasure
October 15th, 2009 at 9:08 pmA bouquet for simplifying electricity purchases.
October 26th, 2009 at 11:34 amMy wife can immediately appreciate the benefit of Powershop because the unit price is the total price to us. She’s not interested in factoring in daily charges, an additional levy, or prompt payment discounts.
With one unit price I can immediately assess how good any time-based offer is.
Thanks.
@Mark:
Thanks. That’s the general idea, to make it easy to understand your consumption, and maybe even have a bit of fun too.
October 26th, 2009 at 9:34 pmToday, I got a nice surprise from the Powershop system.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pmAs it is 1 November, Powershop has reallocated my usage so that I use the units that expire earlier. Before this recalculation, my initial joining topup was used up, and the value pack I purchased was then being. I’d also bought a November pack.
After the recalculation, all my power now comes from the November pack because it expires 30 November. The other two packs are now totally unused because they expire 31 December.
I hadn’t realised that the November pack could be used before 1 November. That works great for me.
Thanks
@Mark:
Yep, that’s the way they work – the units are valid from the last account review in the month prior to their ‘notional’ date to the first account review after. And of course, we redeem the units with the earliest expiry date first – this reduces the risk that they will expire on you.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:33 pmWell I can’t rate powershop high enough. We were paying 33.33 per unit including all levies and gst with Trustpower. We love being able to see how much we are using and the opportunity to chose what units we want to buy. I have recommended you to everyone I know. WE LOVE POWERSHOP!!!!!!! We will never got back to dictating, money hungry, uneducated and unhelpful competing power companies again. Powershop has our custom forever. Three cheers for Powershop you guys rock.
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:58 pm@Alana:
Wow! That is awesome feedback – thanks very much. Glad to hear you are enjoying your Powershop experience.
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 pmI called a certain utility recently. The phone answering robot asked me to type in my phone number (they sell telecommunications and they don’t have caller ID?), then say my birthday. After ten minutes of “we value your call”s, I finally got a human. She asked me my name, birthday and address before she would talk to me. At Powershop, a simple “Hi I’m Felix” is sufficient. Keep it up. Another thing about the call center: I don’t know if my questions are too tricky or something, but a lot of the time the operator had to put me on hold and ask their supervisor.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:57 am@Felix:
Thanks for the feedback. And yes, I imagine a lot of your questions are too tricky – some of them even have me scratching my head
If you have tricky questions I suggest you send them via feedback from the website, then you won’t have to wait around for the answer.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:31 pmHappy new year to Powershop crew. Thank you for the great and consistent service and wish you all a great 2010 year.
January 2nd, 2010 at 4:01 pmHi Ari,
January 27th, 2010 at 9:28 pmHave been with powershop for a month now and saved over $50.00 in that month. This is a big saving for us being on the superanuation I tell all our friends about you.
Web site easy to use and you can see the savings at a glance. Thanks again
@John:
Thanks. Glad to hear you are enjoying and benefiting from Powershop.
January 27th, 2010 at 9:36 pmHi when will powershop be in Rotorua it’s been 12 months now, and I don’t think it’s fear we have to wait this long to get powershop into our city.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:16 amI keep getting an answer of we don’t have a set time fame, that’s not a reasonable for me.
Thanks
Shawn
@Shawn:
Sorry, as much as we’d like to be available everywhere our priority is to maintain a high quality of service in the areas we are already operating. We do not want to spread ourselves too thin.
Unfortunately, we still don’t have a definite timeframe for being available in Rotorua, however, we are working on some functionality that will be available to all customers, whether or not they are Powershop customers, to help them manage their consumption.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:24 pmHi what do you mean you are working on some functionality? Can you expand on that answer please?
February 8th, 2010 at 9:59 am@Shawn:
I can’t give you exact details at this stage because this project is currently still in development, but we are looking at providing some online tools for consumers (whether or not they are Powershop customers) to monitor and manage their power consumption more closely.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:24 amHi just one more question is powershop working hard to get powershop into other areas?
February 8th, 2010 at 11:11 am@Shawn:
Yes, we have expanded into a number of areas since our original launch a year ago. Our issue now is not so much getting into new areas, but having confidence that we can deliver a good service in all areas. The more areas we operate in, the greater the risk that our service levels slip. At this stage we are consolidating our current areas and are not actively planning expansion into new areas until we are confident we can do so without risking a degradation in service to our existing customers.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:16 amWell I’m sure powershop will do a great job in other ares.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:18 amAs Wel Networks normally run the discounts march-april, and are applied to accounts.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:26 amHow wil the network rebates show on the account pages?
will it show a credit dollar balance/ or will it be converted into kWh?
@Damian:
This will most likely be provided in the form of an account credit. We are just waiting for some information from Wel Networks before we make a final decision on our approach.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:36 amThanks Ari
February 9th, 2010 at 1:15 pmAssuming it’ll appear as a dollar credit… with regards any purchases made after it has been applied, would they come out of the credit first and foremost?
- On another topic, on the Account Statement page, i’m curious why scheduled (non-debited) payments show as a positive value yet the total running balance shows as negative –
i would have expected the running balance to be positive unless i’d paid more than i’d purchased to date.
@Damian:
Yes, by default any account credit will get used first.
On your account statement question, normally you would expect this to sit at zero, unless you have overpaid (or had a credit applied). It does however go into OD temporarily between the time you make a purchase and when the purchase is paid for. This will happen when we auto-purchase on your behalf. The situation with your account is that as a new customer you had not yet completed the direct debit activation process until yesterday. Now that this has been done your account will be debited for your prior purchase to bring your account balance back to zero. The email confirming your direct debit information will contain the details of this transaction.
If you have any further questions feel free to call our contact centre.
February 9th, 2010 at 3:08 pmI noticed steal-a-deal is always the same price regardless of monthly price adjustments – is this because there is no fixed cost element associated with these specials?
February 11th, 2010 at 7:13 am@Jared:
No, that’s just coincidence. It is essentially the energy that is being specialed and the level of discount will change between specials.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:03 amAri,
It’s probably old news for you guys, but congratulations on being the fastest growing power retailer in February. 1974 customers at over 24% growth must exceed your projections (unless you’re being pretty optimistic).
I just wish I could buy shares…
Pete
Powershop Outgrows All Comers:
March 19th, 2010 at 3:54 pmhttp://www.peteandmegan.com/?p=313
@Pete:
Thanks. And yes, we are very happy with our recent growth rate
March 19th, 2010 at 3:57 pmHey Team PS
Things are working out great since we switched at home. I’ve been looking at our work bills and it would be good to talk with you guys about our biz needs.. Our usage changes seasonally (A Lot!) so how far back should we go with our bills for savings analysis?
March 19th, 2010 at 10:21 pm@Stu:
Glad to hear you’re enjoying Powershop. The best thing to do for your business is to call one of the biz team on 0800 472 952 and they’ll sort you out.
March 19th, 2010 at 11:46 pmHi Guys,
March 25th, 2010 at 9:11 pmJust a note to say that three months with you and are enjoying great benefits and saving a great deal. Many thanks.
@John:
Thanks John. Glad to hear it
March 25th, 2010 at 9:16 pmJust thought I would report back on some real world savings after 1 year on powershop – My report after 6 months is about somewhere.
Power Used: 10462/units
Power Cost: $1780.10
Less Join Credit: $70
Less Weekend Rebates: $48.49
Actual Cost: $1661.61
Cost with old provider Empower All Day Economy would have been $2280
So a total saving of $618.39 or 27%
It is worth noting I have be fairly active an aggressive about what power I bought when and how which will have added quite a bit to the savings.
Consumer says powershops predicted cost for this amount of power over this period would have been $1,839
April 1st, 2010 at 4:53 pmJoining was THE best thing I ever did. Now I am in total control of my power usage! I have so much choice it’s unreal. And savings, unbelievable. My old company was basing me on 30 units a day, when in fact I can see I am using 9.. yes 9!!
April 4th, 2010 at 1:16 am@Maria: Thanks for that, glad you’re happy with Powershop.
April 4th, 2010 at 10:14 amSince joining Powershop I’ve been entering my meter readings weekly.
This week I noticed my controlled water heater usage had spiked.
It turns out that hot water was trickling out the overflow pipe onto my roof.
It is thanks to Powershop that I was alerted so soon to energy going down the drain.
April 16th, 2010 at 1:51 pm@Peter:
That’s great news. You’ve been rewarded for your diligence in entering meter readings.
My power spiked a couple of weeks ago too, the culprit in my case is school holidays, so I’m going to send the kids back to school next week
April 16th, 2010 at 3:47 pmBeen a customer for a month or two now. Niiiiice. Very nice!
July 14th, 2010 at 10:21 am@Katy: Thanks
July 14th, 2010 at 11:49 amTo all Powershop crew,
Wish you all a merry Christmas and Happy new year!!!!
December 24th, 2010 at 7:08 pmI consider myself a very loyal customer having been with the same energy supplier for over 15 years, service helpful, my monthly bills pretty reasonable for a household of 7 people , that was UNTIL my provider decided all the customers would be going to the new age meter reads and installed a Smart Meter. Mine was installed in November, saw nothing untoward in my bills, until March the following year, I got hit with my April energy bill for 700+ dollars via email saying when this would be deducted from my account etc… I did not receive any letter of explanation that this was coming, it was very distressing to say the least.(Why is it we the customer always have to follow up) anyway I Got on the phone to be told when they installed my smart meter the readings had not been registering properly, they knew this from December and it took a technician 4 months to put a damn aerial up, and yep I got hit with the uncharged units that were not recorded. What did they offer me? oh $50 off, needless to say I requested a supervisor as I felt that was an insult for a stuff up at their end. To cut a long story short, I ended my relationship with this provider shopped around and came across POWERSHOP via GOOGLE. The call centre operators very helpful in my initial setup and walked me through how it works etc… yeah, took me a couple of weeks to get my head everything etc, well three months down the track its been a breeze, I have control and I love it, (If I stuff up its my fault, lol) I find all the data you provide very helpful and easy to follow, needless to say I have not looked back and crow about POWERSHOP to all my friends and anyone else who wants to listen.
Oh and yes I did get a letter from the other provider, but only one of those we sorry to lose you type ones and then lists all the benefits and why i should stay, listing the Smart Reader as one of their latest technology, with accurate reading etc… What a whole lot of shite, but anyway’s Im a POWERSHOP girl in a POWERSHOP world. Keep it up.
July 27th, 2011 at 2:14 am@Moana: Awesome
July 27th, 2011 at 1:09 pmThank you Ricky Customer Representative Guy for been so informative when I rung you today to change to Powershop! You are an excellent worker who is very helpful! Thank you!
November 3rd, 2011 at 11:39 am