Services
We strive to achieve the right balance between providing good services for all our customers and devoting extra attention to individuals and businesses in specific situations. We regularly measure the levels of satisfaction with our services via panels of business customers and consumers. You can find the most recent results of these surveys in our sustainability report.
Customer focus
We regard achieving a greater customer focus among our employees as one of the keys to achieving structural improvements in our services. We consequently devote considerable efforts to increasing awareness and employee training.
Consumer & Energy Supplier Code of Conduct
Nuon complies with the EnergieNed code of conduct that provides guidance on achieving good and honest relationships between consumers and suppliers. Nuon actively contributed to the code of conduct, which provides guidance for consumers and suppliers on customer acquisitions, customer contacts and contract terminations.
Customer complaints officer
If a customer and Nuon fail to settle a complaint, the customer can choose to take the complaint to the Nuon customer complaints officer. This officer reviews the case to assess and form an opinion on Nuon's handling of the complaint. The customer complaints officer also gives advice on how services can be changed to prevent complaints in future. Arbitration by the customer complaints officer is free of charge.
The customer complaints officer is usually the final link in the complaints procedure. This procedure enables complaints to be handled relatively quickly and avoids the need for customers to seek recourse to a disputes committee or the courts.
Helping customers in need
Our debt collectors are sometimes confronted with distressing situations when visiting customers at home. Besides having trouble paying their energy bill, some of these customers seem to be unable to look after themselves or other members of the household. They may require professional assistance. Nuon is committed to ensuring that these customers are offered help.
To this end, Nuon started introducing covenants with local municipal health departments in 2005. These covenants are intended to prevent a customer's health and safety being put at serious risk. Debt collectors attend an information session arranged by the municipal health department so they learn to recognise situations requiring the department's intervention.
If a debt collector reports such a case, the municipal health department will visit the customer within two days. If the customer is then classified as a 'person in need of services', Nuon will suspend all collection and disconnection measures. The municipal health department then contacts official assistance organisations, such as social services and debt assistance services, to find a solution to the problems.
Debt assistance and disconnections
Wherever possible, Nuon seeks to avoid the occurrence of problematic debts. Whenever a collection procedure is started up, we offer the customers involved a repayment arrangement and advise them to contact social services or debt assistance services. Disconnection following a collection procedure is an extreme measure, which is not applied in cases of 'persons in need of services' or during the winter months.
The ministerial decree on the 'Disconnection of electricity and gas for small consumers' came into force in late 2006. This is designed to prevent electricity and gas being disconnected in the winter months and to pre-empt mounting payment arrears. We have also opted to apply this decree outside the winter months.
Cooperation with other institutions is essential if we are to avoid payment problems leading to disconnections. In 2006, Nuon signed a number of partnership agreements:
- convenant with the NVVK (Netherlands Association for Municipal Credit Banks) in which the signatories undertake to act more quickly on payment problems;
- letter of intent with the municipality of Zaanstad and five other organisations on action that can be taken to help people at risk of debt problems
- letter of intent, signed by the energy companies, on cooperating to avoid problematic debts