Flick Electric Co. fails to provide useful customer usage data

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KiwiME

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#195077 5-Apr-2016 15:35

I've written to Flick several times on the subject of metrics since joining them a year ago but there have been no obvious changes.

All my previous electricity suppliers provided adequate historical data for a customer to understand their usage over the past year. Energy Online provided a column bar chart on every bill with my year-to-date usage by month in kWh/day and the average daily and average monthly bill stated in text.

Flick's customer "dashboard" looks pretty but in practice provides little useful information. There is nothing there that you can use to compare your overall cost with other electricity suppliers.

Given that they capture usage data for every 30 minute interval I'm beginning to think there is intentional obfuscation going on to avoid competition.

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#1526424 5-Apr-2016 15:53

Yeah, same here. No way to get to the data....well if you don't automate it ;-) You could scrape it off. I had a look but haven't got a script yet.

Contacted them several times too. I believe their dev team isn't that big but it shouldn't be too hard.

timmmay

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#1526435 5-Apr-2016 16:31

Before complaining did you try asking them? I have full usage information for the past year, by the half hour.

Email customer service, they can give you a spreadsheet of your usage per half hour and price paid. They asked that these requests be infrequent, I think they're manual. My guess is every few months would probably be acceptable. I suspect if they're common they may automate the supply.

grant_k

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#1526436 5-Apr-2016 16:37

KiwiME:

...
All my previous electricity suppliers provided adequate historical data for a customer to understand their usage over the past year. Energy Online provided a column bar chart on every bill with my year-to-date usage by month in kWh/day and the average daily and average monthly bill stated in text.
...

Energy Online have upped their game considerably since you left. I've had Smart Meters only since January so my historical data is limited, but as time goes on I will have an increasingly valuable set of charts at my fingertips.

Here is what their app provides:

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#1526451 5-Apr-2016 17:33

Wow. I used to be with Energy Online (before they had that) but switched to TrustPower a couple of years ago. I certainly don't get that level of detail :(

olivernz

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#1526811 6-Apr-2016 10:57

To all suggesting emailing them, that is not the point! I know I can do that and I will for my yearly analysis but I run a IoT home. I need data that is available at least once a day and preferrably without scraping some web page. I have sent Flick about 20-25 feature requests for all sorts of things. None of which are really hard to do. I ackgnoledge that they are a small team but just dumping your data back to you can't be that hard. I actually also asked for a simple API taht let's me query my account. That might take a bit longer to implement.

I'm not worried that I can't get my data. I am just annoyed I can't do so at a whim. This is the 1st retailer I am with that can't provide that.

Don't get me wrong though. I like what Flick is doing and I support them all the way. Otherwise I would not spend time requesting features and discussing stuff with them.

Yoban

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#1526913 6-Apr-2016 12:32

From memory they need to by law from the EA be able to provide you your data up to two years of history at the lowest granularity available. This came in to effect this year. Have a chat to them.

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KiwiME

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#1528891 9-Apr-2016 10:04

Thanks, everyone for the replies...

Rappelle: You can email them to request your data. ...

Yoban: ... Have a chat to them.

Hmm, well Flick did not offer to send me the raw data in lieu of providing a relevant feature on their web site.

Frankly, I think their existing charts are just sales fluff and they should not have wasted money on those.

My recent inquiry:

Where do I find the long-term metrics of my electricity usage? I should be able to see my total units used in the past 12 months and a chart showing columns of the month-to-month totals. The present charts for months are in $ but I should be able to alter the vertical axis to "units" to remove the price variations. Thank you

Their response:

Hi,

Thanks for your email!

We are working on a function where you can see your usage for the last 12 months, unfortunately we don’t have this feature just yet but it is being worked on.

Cheers,

Bex

Customer Experience Advisor

And what I wrote when they emailed me a survey last year:

In the end Flick bills need to be easily compared by consumers to rates from other suppliers without doing any maths.

In order to do this the Flick bill needs to show directly comparable bottom-line information, which it currently does not do. The detailed breakdown of generation/transmission/distribution/metering is only of academic interest.

You should add a box with the 4-week cumulative average sub-total for both fixed and variable (pre-GST) charges.

The fact that some other suppliers apply a discount for prompt payment simply gives their quoted rates an inflated appearance, which is their problem not yours.

In order to keep me as a customer you need to stay efficient and minimise your add-on charges. That means careful use of advertising, website and other discretionary expenses. Excessive TV advertising (like insurance companies and banks) gives an appearance of wasting customer's money. If you are competitive in your market, Powerswitch will do the advertising for you.

KiwiME

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#1528894 9-Apr-2016 10:15

grant_k:

Energy Online have upped their game considerably since you left. I've had Smart Meters only since January so my historical data is limited, but as time goes on I will have an increasingly valuable set of charts at my fingertips.

No doubt you are aware that Flicks requires that you already have a smart meter. Seems like a catch-22 if your current supplier is reluctant to install one, which is what has happened with a rental shop we have.

I see the Energy Online vertical axis on the charts is in dollars. To analyse consumption I would prefer that be in kWh to take out the factor of price. I realize that they may have fixed rates but with Flick it's changing all the time.

cheers for posting the graphs...

grant_k

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#1528903 9-Apr-2016 10:24

KiwiME:

grant_k:

Energy Online have upped their game considerably since you left. I've had Smart Meters only since January so my historical data is limited, but as time goes on I will have an increasingly valuable set of charts at my fingertips.

No doubt you are aware that Flicks requires that you already have a smart meter. Seems like a catch-22 if your current supplier is reluctant to install one, which is what has happened with a rental shop we have.

I see the Energy Online vertical axis on the charts is in dollars. To analyse consumption I would prefer that be in kWh to take out the factor of price. I realize that they may have fixed rates but with Flick it's changing all the time.

cheers for posting the graphs...

You can choose kWh simply by tapping on the green icon shown at top right-hand corner of the first graph.

timmmay

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#1528982 9-Apr-2016 13:31

You can rant on as much as you like, it won't change things. They're a young company, a start-up, with limited resources. They're going to first do what will get them the most customers and the best path to profitability, and I have to say your request is probably near last on the list. Given they will send you the information you want, manually, occasionally, I think you either need to accept that and wait (possibly years) or change power companies.

nigelj

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#1529057 9-Apr-2016 16:33

timmmay:

You can rant on as much as you like, it won't change things. They're a young company, a start-up, with limited resources. They're going to first do what will get them the most customers and the best path to profitability, and I have to say your request is probably near last on the list. Given they will send you the information you want, manually, occasionally, I think you either need to accept that and wait (possibly years) or change power companies.

Not actually the case... see OP's post (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=48&topicid=195077&page_no=1#1528891) and I've had a similar experience "There is nothing we can do until the feature is rolled out for all".

Not only that, we are still waiting for them to 'get confirmation from the metering company' of a powercut that took the lines out for a reasonable number of hours that they seem to have then estimated (rather dubiously I might add) data through that period. Powershop would correctly handle these periods as null data (although it didn't matter for them).

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timmmay

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#1529058 9-Apr-2016 16:37

Well they sent me a spreadsheet, I don't know why they'd do it for me and not others.

Another thing, Flick had my smart meter installed, someone mentioned earlier they required a smart meter. I was part of a trial so it may not be widely available yet.

KiwiME

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#1529067 9-Apr-2016 16:48

Rappelle: .. run a ruby script...Hope you find some use out of it.

Trying it now ... thanks!

timmmay:

Well they sent me a spreadsheet, I don't know why they'd do it for me and not others.

Another thing, Flick had my smart meter installed...

Agreed .. I'm not taking "no" for an answer ... so silly to be passive ... will explicitly request the info on Monday and I'm sure they will provide it as the EA requires.

https://www.ea.govt.nz/consumers/your-power-data-in-your-hands/my-usage/

Regarding the smart meter, in my case Flick would not set me up with an account until I had one and I had to wait until Energy Online (or whomever does this) got around to installing one.

richms

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#1529103 9-Apr-2016 17:40

Genisis energy pulled the half hour data from the app etc because it was too confusing or some BS marketing excuse.

Then I swapped meters for export/import metering and lost any charts at all. Back to bi monthly having someone come out and read numbers off the box like its the 1970's or something daft.

Richard rich.ms

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#1529646 10-Apr-2016 20:43

nigelj:
timmmay:

You can rant on as much as you like, it won't change things. They're a young company, a start-up, with limited resources. They're going to first do what will get them the most customers and the best path to profitability, and I have to say your request is probably near last on the list. Given they will send you the information you want, manually, occasionally, I think you either need to accept that and wait (possibly years) or change power companies.

Not actually the case... see OP's post (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=48&topicid=195077&page_no=1#1528891) and I've had a similar experience "There is nothing we can do until the feature is rolled out for all".

Not only that, we are still waiting for them to 'get confirmation from the metering company' of a powercut that took the lines out for a reasonable number of hours that they seem to have then estimated (rather dubiously I might add) data through that period. Powershop would correctly handle these periods as null data (although it didn't matter for them).

Tell them to add up all of your half hourly usage blocks and compare it with the register reads. They definitely take weekly register reads and maybe daily ones as well. You could also check yourself as they tell you the register readings in the top right corner of the bill breakdown.

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