AGL sees customers take up digital

AGL’s strategy to uplift its customer experience and retail strategy has seen a boost in digital adoption despite its profit drop.

The Australian energy company reported its total services to customers remained stable at 4.2 million, including a 50,000 increase in telecommunications services in spite of market volatility including unplanned outages.

In its 2022 full-year results AGL Managing Director and CEO, Graeme Hunt said its result “reflects the resilience of the business against the backdrop of a very challenging energy industry and market conditions that intensified in the second half.”

Hunt said “more customers are interacting with us on digital channels than ever before, with more than one million customers using the AGL Mobile App and MyAccount services.”

App users surpassing a million was attributed to digital improvements resulting in high customer adoption.

He said AGL’s customer base alongside “prudent margin management, has positioned us well despite increased volatility and churn in the market.”

AGL chief operating officer Markus Brokhof also said the company’s established digital twins for both its Loy Yang A and Bayswater plants will “reduce physical testing and instead optimise the operating conditions and capital works”.

“The Digital Control Systems and Monitoring systems are being upgraded so we can better understand the health of the system in real time and take action quickly,” Brokhof said.

AGL’s chief customer officer Jo Egan added its internally developed NEO platform, which manages distributed energy resources such as residential batteries, “is already delivering value through orchestration of these assets connected via our virtual power plant”.

Egan said AGL’s ongoing retail transformation program is “driving efficiency across the business by simplifying products, business architecture and technology”.

“This program is already delivering benefits and our simplification activity is well underway.

“Process enhancements and product rationalisation have delivered improvements in handling times and improved speed to market of over 30 percent.”

Egan said AGL has now begun “the uplift of our middle layer of technology through implementation of our new CRM, product catalogue and intelligent business process management capability.”

“This flexible and modular technology architecture will enable adaptability for future market innovations.”

AGL’s underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) dropped 27 percent to $1.218 billion, while its underlying profit after tax was $225 million dollars, down 58 percent from the prior year.

Hunt said the lower results were partly driven by factors including “planned and unplanned outages, unprecedented market volatility and suspension, milder weather, and margin compression via customer switching.

“Whilst the second half has been one of the most challenging and complex periods in AGL’s operating history, the underlying strength of our business remains.”