Customer Care Policy

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Power at home from Z Energy Limited (Z Power) – Customer Care Policy

01 April 2025

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We’ve created our Customer Care Policy in line with the Electricity Authority's Consumer Care Obligations.

We know that electricity is essential to the wellbeing of you and your whānau. It’s our commitment to you, as a Z Power customer, to do our very best to support you and continually bring you top-notch service.

Through our Customer Care Policy, we aim to:

Provide you with the tools, tips and information that you need to make the most of the services we provide to you.
Let you know how we’ll communicate with you, and how you can get in touch with us.
Help you understand how we can support you during financial hardship or as a medically dependent customer.
Let you know our expectations of you as a Z Power customer.
Build a great relationship with you and learn how we can serve you better.

We are dedicated to continually improving our service by learning from our experiences and using these insights to enhance our process and policies to support you. If we identify any areas for improvement, we will update our Customer Care Policy to ensure we are providing the best possible support.

Z Power—plain and simple.

Z Power brings a great Kiwi service straight to a power point near you. You will get great electricity, plain and simple.

We know electricity isn’t top of mind for most people – it should all just work when you flick the switch. But we also know that getting great deals and supporting the ones you love is important too. That was why Z Power was created. It’s a way to help with New Zealand’s transition towards a better future, where electricity plays an even greater role in New Zealanders’ moving world.

Our customer service ethos

We pride ourselves in doing right by our customers and we’ll treat you with care and respect as we work together to support better outcomes for Kiwis.

We genuinely care for our customers

We connect with our customers on a personal level and we always strive to be respectful, compassionate, and honest.

Our customer experience is underpinned by our people and culture

We invest in the happiness and hauora of the people who look after our customers - our staff - so that they’re able to provide a friendly, helpful and efficient service that goes above and beyond your expectations.

Customer experience is driven by feedback and customer choice

We listen. Our customer service team is based in Wellington, working alongside our technology team, armed with your feedback and ready to deliver you greater choice and control.

When you join Z Power

We’re stoked to have you as part of our Z Power whānau! First up, we need you to do some things for us:

Read, understand and accept our Z Power Customer Terms and Conditions, our Privacy Policy and Consumer Care Policy.
Understand our pricing for the plan you have selected and make an informed choice.
Let us know if anyone at the address we’ll be supplying electricity to is medically dependent on electricity. More on what this means later in this policy.
Provide us all the necessary details through our online join form to help us assess your application and sign you up as a customer.

If your application to join us has been unsuccessful, we’ll let you know:

The reason why the application has been declined.
Details of pricing plan comparison websites such as Powerswitch which can help you choose another retailer.

Once you have joined the Z Power whānau, we want to make sure that:

You have every opportunity to be on the best pricing plan to meet your needs.
We understand your situation and are proactive in offering assistance.
We work with you in a collaborative and constructive manner to solve problems.
We learn from our experiences to continually improve our support processes.

We are dedicated to continually improving our service by learning from our experiences and using these insights to enhance our process and policies to support you. We review our Customer Care Policy at least every two years or where needed to identify any areas for improvement and make the changes we need to ensure we provide the best possible support.

Choosing the right plan

If you have any questions about your current plan or would like to discuss which plan is best for you, feel free to contact us.

You can view your information at any time including your plan, pricing details, and power consumption. Simply login to MyAccount

How we communicate with you

It’s important to us that you feel comfortable reaching out to us for help and we encourage you to let us know what you need from us. We will do everything we reasonably can to support you, and we’ll always treat you with dignity and respect.

We’ll be in touch from time to time to ensure that you’re getting the most out of being a Z Power customer. We’re a down-to-earth and friendly team, and our customers trust and value that. We work with our customers, communicating clearly, openly and as quickly as we can to deliver the best outcomes for them.

Our main communication method is through email, so you’re required to have a valid email address to sign up with Z Power. We use email to send out all billing and planned outage information. However, if we need to get in touch with you urgently, or we haven’t heard back from you, one of our friendly team may give you a call or text message.

Contacting Z Power

We’re a small, local team based in Wellington and the best way to get in touch is by emailing us at helpwithpower@z.co.nz. Or you can call us on 0800 935 328 (+64 4 472 0080 from overseas) if you’d like to chat to a friendly voice.

Authorised persons, alternate contact persons and support persons

To help you manage your account, you can appoint an authorised person to your Z account.
An authorised person can manage and operate your Z account in relation to your property. This means they can act on your behalf, including making changes to your account and providing instructions as if they were you. You remain responsible for all actions taken by the authorised person. Since they are granted the authority to act on your behalf, it’s important that you and the authorised person fully understand and agree to these responsibilities.

To appoint an authorised person, you’ll need to obtain their consent to share their contact details with us and then call us to provide this information. We will then reach out to confirm their consent and ensure they understand their obligations.

If you’d prefer to manage and operate your account yourself but need some assistance with communication, you can appoint an alternate contact person or a support person.

An alternate contact person is someone we can reach out to if we are unable to contact you. They can help ensure you receive important communications, especially if you are experiencing payment difficulties. This person can be a family member, friend, or your nominated support person.

A support person is someone that can assist you in communicating with us, including providing language support or support to you in other situations where you’ve let us know you’d like to involve them. They may also engage with us directly to discuss anything on your account, but they won’t be authorised to make any changes to the account.
To appoint an alternate contact person or support person, you’ll need to call us to tell us their name and contact details. Before you do this, please make sure you have their permission to nominate them and share their information with us.

Languages

Diversity is beautiful, and we’re proud to provide power to people of all cultures, backgrounds and languages here in Aotearoa. While we primarily speak English in our call centre, we’ll do everything we can to support you if English is not your first language. In addition to offering you the option to appoint an alternate contact person or support person to help you communicate with us, we also have an interpreter service available if needed. To find a communication method that works for you, you can email us at helpwithpower@z.co.nz or give us a call on 0800 935 328.

Helping you if you have difficulty paying your bills

Sometimes life happens, and that can make things hard if you’ve got bills to pay. We get it - we're humans, and we've been there too.

Our commitments:

We’re a compassionate and understanding team, and we’re here to help. We will work with you to try to keep your electricity connected if you are having payment difficulties.
We’ll work with you to find a way to pay off any outstanding balances to us. This might include setting up a payment plan that works for your circumstances, additional time to pay large bills, holding a payment until your next pay comes in, or linking you to a support or social agency to assist you (with your permission).
We understand how hard it can be to keep up with bill payments and that’s why we don’t charge late payment fees.

Our expectations:

Talk to us as soon as you think you might have difficulty paying a bill. This gives us time to work with you to find the best solution before any debt builds up, or you incur unnecessary bank fees for failed payments.
We expect you to engage with us in good faith to avoid or minimise non-payment issues.
We’ll need you to work with us to come to an arrangement to reduce any outstanding balance over time. If that’s not possible due to personal circumstances, you’ll allow us to seek financial support on your behalf.

Communications with you

We will give you plenty of opportunities and reminders to talk to us if you are having difficulty paying your bill. To ensure our communications reach you, we will contact you through various channels. This could include email, phone calls if we don’t hear from you, and leaving a voicemail message if you're unavailable. If you have nominated an alternate contact person, we will also reach out to them to ensure our communication has been received.

Ways we can help

We’ll go through the options to help you catch up on the missed payments and help you to avoid this in the future. Some of these options are:
- Changing your billing cycle to make your payments more regular and predictable or to align with your paydays.
- Setting up a suitable payment plan with you to pay off any outstanding amount that is overdue and make sure the payments are affordable in your circumstances.
If you have a payment plan set up, we’ll let you know if any payment is missed and work with you to make any adjustments to make sure the payments continue to be affordable in your circumstances.
With your permission, we can link you to social agencies that can provide additional assistance, including:
- Work and Income that may be able to provide you with financial assistance. You can contact them on 0800 559 009 or with your permission, we can also engage with them on your behalf.
- Money Talks for free and confidential advice on budgeting and managing finances and debt, as well as guidance on WINZ processes and entitlements. You can contact them on 0800 345 123 or moneytalks.co.nz
- The New Zealand Federation of Family Budgeting Services on 0508 283 438 for advice on bill management.

Disconnection of your power

It’s super important that you make contact with us to make an arrangement for payment of any overdue amount. If you fail to do so, we may disconnect your electricity.
Disconnection of your power is the absolute last resort and not something we do lightly.

If we do disconnect your power:

We’ll give you a minimum of 10 days notice before your power is turned off, along with a final pre-disconnection notice at least 24-hours prior to turning off the power.
We won’t disconnect you on a Friday, the day before a public holiday, or in instances where a same-day reconnection would be difficult.

Reconnection of your power

We’ll reconnect the property as soon as the outstanding balance and any applicable disconnection fee incurred is cleared. You’ll also need to pay the applicable reconnection fee.
If at any time anyone on site is identified as being potentially medically dependent, we’ll also reconnect your power. You will need to notify us of this as soon as possible. See more information on the ‘Helping you if you’re medically dependent’ section below.

Helping you if you’re medically dependent

The Electricity Authority defines a medically dependent person as someone who relies on mains electricity for critical medical support, and for whom the loss of electricity may cause death or serious injury.
Medical dependence on electricity could relate to the use of medical equipment, such as a ventilator or renal haemodialysis machine, or other non-medical electrical equipment needed to support treatment, such as a microwave to heat fluids for renal dialysis.
If you or anyone living with you at your home, either temporarily or permanently, is dependent on electricity for medical reasons, it’s important you let us know as soon as possible so that we can make sure we’ve got this recorded in our system, and we provide you with the right level of support. We may ask you to provide proof of medical dependency at any time.

Our commitments to medically dependent individuals

You won’t be disconnected for non-payment of debt if you’ve been confirmed as being medically dependent by your doctor and the paperwork has been approved by us.
If you fall into arrears, we’ll work closely with you to assist you by referring you to social agencies who could help with your financial situation.
We’ll record your medical dependency status on our system to avoid any disconnection to your property.

Preparing for a power outage if you’re medically dependent
We can’t always guarantee the supply of electricity. It’s important for all of us to be prepared for a power cut, but it’s especially important for our medically dependent individuals to have a plan in place.
To prepare for a power cut, you should have an emergency response plan in place to ensure any power cuts won’t create a health risk. This can include having some form of backup electricity, such as a generator, or going to a family member or friend’s house that still has electricity. And, of course, don’t hesitate to contact your healthcare provider or call 1-1-1 if you’re concerned about the health of yourself or someone in your household during a power cut.

You can also have a chat about this with your doctor, as they can help you work out an appropriate emergency response plan.

For resources to support the development of an individual emergency response plan, visit the Electricity Authority’s page for Medically Dependent consumers.

Notifying us of your medically dependent status

When you complete our join form, you’ll be asked if you or anyone at the property is medically dependent on electricity - simply let us know at this stage, or by contacting us at any time via email or phone to advise us of your medical condition.
We will also remind you to tell us annually.

Information you’ll need to provide us

If you’ve identified yourself or someone in your home as being medically dependent, we’ll make note of this in our system and reach out to you to obtain the information we need to confirm your medical dependency status and register this on your Z account. This could include asking you to provide proof of medical dependency at any time that is verified by a health practitioner (usually a doctor).

If you do not provide us with the information required within the timeframes we’ve communicated to you, we may decide to remove your medical dependency status from our system. Before we do this, we will let you know and give you the opportunity to provide the information required.

Please note that any information provided to us will be stored in our system. This information will be used to help ensure that we do not disconnect power for our medically dependent individuals, and we can notify you in advance of any planned outages that may affect your power supply as well as notify you as soon as possible in the event of an unplanned outage. We may also share this information with the relevant distributor, metering equipment provider, and other third parties as necessary to ensure they are aware of your medically dependent status.

Helping you if you’re a vulnerable customer

At Z, we broadly define vulnerable customers as those encountering financial, health and functional vulnerability.

It’s important to note that vulnerability is complex and can affect us all in many ways throughout the course of our lives. If you’re encountering any sort of vulnerability, we want to make sure that we’re identifying this as early as possible so that we can support you.

Our definition of vulnerability includes, and is not limited to:

Financial vulnerability – including difficulties with cash flow, covering all expenses, or needing to significantly limit power use to cover other bills.
Health vulnerability – including those for whom loss of power at their property may pose a threat to their health or well-being, and health risks related to age, health or disability. Please note this is distinguished from medically dependent individuals that are captured separately above.
Functional vulnerability – including any situation that causes a customer difficulty to interact or pay for services, due to cognitive ability, literacy skills, language, communication skills, physical or intellectual disability, time available, grief and stress.

Make sure you let us know if you experience any sort of vulnerability or need any support – that way we can help!

Preparing for a power outage if you have a health vulnerability

If you have a health vulnerability and you’re concerned about being without power for any length of time, it’s a great idea to familiarise yourself with close neighbours so that you can call on them for help if you need it. It’s a great idea to be prepared because a power outage can strike when you least expect it – make sure you’ve got a torch or other light source handy, as well as lots of warm blankets (especially in the chilly winter months).

How you can make a complaint

Our internal disputes process is in place to help resolve any issues or complaints. To register your complaint please contact our team on 0800 935 328 (+64 4 472 0080) from overseas) or email helpwithpower@z.co.nz. We will try to resolve your complaint as soon as possible in accordance with our resolution process set out under clause 13 of Z Power customer terms and conditions.

However, if, for some reason, we’re unable to resolve your complaint within 20 working days, you can take your complaint to Utilities Disputes Limited at info@utilitiesdisputes.co.nz.
To discuss any privacy-related issues or questions you can contact our in-house Privacy Officer at general@z.co.nz. Our Privacy Policy is available for you to read at any time.

Our fees

You won’t find any fees for late payment on our fee schedule. Energy hardship is a real issue for many households in Aotearoa, and we don’t believe it’s fair or right to penalise customers for missing a payment.

We also set our fees at a level so that we’re only recovering the costs which we incur in providing the service - nothing more. We only charge fees for goods and services that you receive which are additional to your supply of electricity.

Before we charge any additional fees, we’ll do our best to make sure we’ve let you know of the amount. The fees stated below are inclusive of GST.

Reconnection/Disconnection Request
Remote – Business Hours: $25 After Hours: N/A
Manual – Business Hours: $110 After Hours: $235

Tariff Change
Remote – Business Hours: $25 After Hours: N/A
Manual – Business Hours: $170 After Hours: $250

Site Visits
Field Site Investigation – Business Hours: $100 After Hours: N/A
Credit – Business Hours: $125 After Hours: N/A

Metering
Meter Relocation – Business Hours: $175 After Hours: $255
Meter Replacement – Business Hours: $175 After Hours: $255
Meter Reseal – Business Hours: $175 After Hours: $255
Decommission – Business Hours: $155 After Hours: $235
Meter Test – Business Hours: $200 After Hours: $280
EG Meter Replacement – Business Hours: $175 After Hours: $255

Faults (If Internal Fault)
Fault Call Out – Business Hours: $100 After Hours: $180
Tampering – Business Hours: $100 After Hours: $180
No Comms – Business Hours: $175 After Hours: $255
Fault to the Meter – Business Hours: Free of charge After Hours: $80

Additional
Turndown (Missed Appointment, Wiring not completed) – Business Hours: N/A After Hours: Full Job Fee