Consumer sentiment survey 2023

In our second sentiment survey, we found that affordability and resilience are still the top 2 concerns for residential and small business consumers in Aotearoa. Businesses in particular are feeling the pinch during this cost-of-living crisis.

Background

We conducted our first sentiment survey of New Zealand small electricity consumers in late 2022, with the goal of better understanding what this group thought about the electricity sector. We commissioned Kantar Public to do this research on our behalf, and they talked to 1026 residential consumers and 500 small businesses in the course of their research.

For our second sentiment survey, Kantar Public again surveyed 1000 residential consumers and 500 small businesses (those with fewer than 20 employees) between 7 June 2023 and 27 June 2023. This time, our goal was to find out how small electricity consumers are feeling about NZ’s electricity sector now, given:

we’re currently experiencing a cost-of-living crisis, and
much of the country is still recovering after Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland floods earlier this year.

Survey findings

In this year’s survey, we can see some real changes in how both businesses and households are feeling. While affordability and resilience remain the top concerns for both groups, we can see that a higher percentage are concerned about these issues.

When we consider the cost of power, we can see that:

58 %

of households were concerned about the cost of power in 2022

65 %

of households are concerned about the cost of power in 2023

7 %

That's an increase of 7% since December 2022.

21 %

of small businesses were feeling the pressure of power bills on their finances in 2022

28 %

of small businesses were feeling the pressure of power bills on their finances in 2023

7 %

That's an increase of 7% since December 2022.

When asked about the electricity system's resilience to extreme weather events:

57 %

of households said they were concerned about it in 2022

65 %

of households said they're concerned about it in 2023

8 %

That's an increase of 8% since December 2022.

59 %

of small businesses said they were concerned about it in 2022

68 %

of small businesses said they're concerned about it in 2023

9 %

That's an increase of 9% since December 2022.

Other findings

Awareness of Utilities Disputes, the complaints resolution scheme for the industry, remains low. Just 15% of residential consumers and 17% of small businesses said they would contact Utilities Disputes if they couldn’t resolve a complaint with their retailer.
Satisfaction with power companies remains static, though there’s been a drop in the proportion of residential consumers who are 'very satisfied' – from 21% in 2022, to 17% in 2023. Satisfaction is lower among Māori, Pacific peoples and those aged 30-39.
More residential consumers feel confident to make choices about which retailer to use – 65% this year compared with 58% in 2022 – and switching is up year-on-year. But Electricity Authority data shows the number of people switching retailers has dropped over the past 5 years. In July 2018 they recorded 404,975 switches. At the end of July 2023, switches were down to 361,819.

See the full results of our 2022 sentiment survey

Future research

Our sentiment surveys are part of our regular programme of research work. We’ll continue to talk to small electricity consumers across New Zealand to ensure we understand the issues they're facing, and how we can work to support them. You’ll find details of all our work, including our research and survey findings, here on our website as it’s completed.

Our work