High-quality products and services

Customer satisfaction overall

The majority of our customers give a score of 8+

Customer satisfaction in 2019 exceeded our ambition: 71% of our customers give us a score of 8 or higher (2019 target: 69%; 2018 target: 67%). The score is also higher than in 2018. In particular, customers are positive about our approach to remedying failures and about smart meter installation. Customers have an extremely positive opinion about our fitters.

In terms of unsatisfied customers, the figure is less positive: 12% give us a score of 5 or lower (2019 target: 10%). Although fewer customers gave this score than in 2018 (2018 target: 12%), it is not yet in line with our ambition: we want to remain below 10%. The principal causes of these scores are the lead time of connections and the communication during the application period, both of which are viewed as less positive. Customers think that the process takes too long and would like more communication on the process.

Customer satisfaction at DNWG was the same in 2018 and 2019, scoring an average of 7.8.

Customer satisfaction: adopting a new measurement method

Stedin measures customer satisfaction by asking for feedback after each contact moment. Customers are asked to answer roughly ten questions about our services and to give us a rating. As of 1 January 2020, Stedin is introducing a new method to measure customer satisfaction: the Customer Effort Score (CES). This method allows us to measure customer ease.

In this new survey, customers decide themselves what they consider to be important. This information gives us a better understanding of the contact moments that are decisive in the customer relationship and of where improvements can be made. It also improves the customer experience when filling in the survey. In addition to the CES questions, we ask customers to give us an Employee Enthusiasm Score (EES) as well as. This score ensures that employees receive even better personal feedback.

Customer satisfaction with connections

Since 2018, we have measured customer satisfaction with regard to connections. We made efforts to improve customer satisfaction with connections in 2019. Despite the measures that we implemented, customer satisfaction with connections is still not at the level which we would like to see.

We fell just short of our target to have 60% of customers rate us 8 or higher. During most months, this figure hovers around 55%. We also failed to achieve our target to have fewer than 15% of our customers rate us 5 or lower. This figure is closer to 18%. There are different reasons for this fact. The first is that the number of requests increased by roughly 20% in 2019. These requests are varied, from connecting charging infrastructure for electric vehicles to removing gas connections and the increased demand from municipalities. Our commitment to more efficient working practices means that the number of FTEs did not grow in proportion to this increase, however.

To improve our customer service, we adapted the organisation in 2019 to working at the product level instead of the regional level. This process results in greater focus and specialisation. The change had a temporary negative impact on the lead times of quotations.

We also experienced an equipment-related problem in 2019. The energy transition caused a substantial increase in demand for materials, especially cables and medium-voltage stations. These materials are difficult to source from suppliers in much greater volumes on the short term. As a result, the delivery time negatively affected our operations. While roughly 200 projects suffered delays as a consequence, we fortunately did not need to cancel any. Although 200 is modest compared with the total number of projects, we are nonetheless seeing an increased volume of complaints. Deliveries have now picked up again, while we have also contracted new suppliers from Finland and Germany.

Time limit of 18 weeks for connections

Despite the setbacks, we managed to meet 88% of all requests within the 18-week statutory time limit for connections. In other words, we achieved our target of 85%. We also achieved our target of having 90% or more of our customers rate our performance as satisfactory for the delivered work. At the same time, we note that customers are regularly dissatisfied with the lead time even when we provide a connection within 18 weeks. They expect faster delivery. Next year, we aim to have 90% of work completed within the statutory time limit for connections. We also want 65% of customers to rate us 8+ and fewer than 10% of customers to rate us lower than 5.

Collectives desk

Stedin's Collectives Desk answers questions that energy collectives may have on subsidy schemes, feed-in connections and meters. In 2019, Stedin connected 27 projects of energy collectives, with feed-in connections for returning energy to the grid. Enduris did the same in Zeeland for four energy collectives.

The smart meter

Customer satisfaction with our smart meter offer

Our customers continue to be satisfied with the offer and installation of smart meters. The figures are identical to 2018. As last year, 80% of our customers rated us 8 or higher in 2019 (target: 79%, 2018: 74%) and 5% of our customers rated us 5 or lower (target: 5%, 2018: 5%). Customers are most satisfied by the friendliness of the fitter (82%). The unsatisfied customers were least satisfied by the fitter's failure to come (at the agreed time).

More than 1.5 million smart meters installed

Stedin installed a smart meter for the 1.5 millionth time at one of our customers in October, which is an impressive milestone. The offer of smart meter installation is in its second-to-last year, with the large-scale provision of smart meters set to end in 2020.

The aim is for at least 80% of all households to have a smart meter by the end of 2020.

Completion rate of smart meter installations

Number of offers

In 2018, we set ourselves a target of 369,400 offers in 2019. In early 2019, following analysis, we decided to revise this figure to 332,800 so we could spread all the outstanding offers still to be made until the end of 2020 evenly over the remaining months. Otherwise, we would have had to scale up capacity in 2019, only to scale it down significantly in 2020. This decision has ensured a more gradual process. In 2019, we offered a smart meter to a total of 317,987 households. This figure is below our target of 332,800 offers.

Completion rate (in per cent)

The target for 2019 was to install a smart meter in 80% of all households. We achieved a figure of 81.9% in this year.

Causes of failure to achieve target for number of offers

There are several reasons why we did not achieve our target. The first is the transition to working in the cloud during the first quarter of 2019. This transition was followed by problems affecting the performance of our software system, which influenced production. The teething problems were resolved during the same quarter and the system functioned properly for the remainder of the year.

The second reason is a shortage of smart gas meters in the summer. One of our suppliers stopped delivering these meters from the end of 2018 due to quality issues that they faced in 2018. We were able to cope well with the shortage of gas meters by adopting a different and more intensive approach to working with all the departments involved in installing smart meters (via the Sales and Operations Planning process). This approach enabled us to make timely and joint decisions on scaling down the size of our external flexible workforce, which prevented a sudden exodus of staff. Although we took action in good time, the downscaling negatively affected the achievement of our targets. There were no problems with the quality of the meters in 2019.

Finally, we notice that it is the 'more difficult' addresses with exceptional situations which still need to be approached towards the end of the large-scale provision.

Despite not achieving the target, we still aim to complete the large-scale offer and provide smart meters on schedule next year. We believe that this aim is feasible.

Improved operational planning helps fitters

In 2019, we implemented a series of improvements that are intended to help our fitters in their work. An example is more efficient planning and the introduction of smarter routes. The journey time for fitters has decreased by roughly 30% as a result. The IT system that we use for this purpose will be rolled out more broadly across Stedin in 2020. We have also planned the quality and safety inspections automatically since 2019, so inspectors are at the customer's home within two hours of meter replacement. The number of customers at home has increased by 7–8% as a result of this improvement.

From information to savings

We provide information to encourage the use of smart meters among customers.

We continued to provide this information in 2019.

Additional mandate from Ministry

The large-scale offer to provide smart meters will end in 2020. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy has additionally mandated the grid managers to ensure that all homes are fitted with a suitable smart meter that can register the amount of energy supplied and the energy returned to the electricity network by the end of 2022. In other words, they should actively approach the remaining 20%.