Hi everyone - Neil here, COO of Amber.
We need to apologise. If you've been unable to get through to our support team, experienced long wait times, or struggled to get answers when you needed them - we're genuinely sorry. This is not the standard we aspire to, and it's definitely not something we're proud of right now. You deserve a full explanation of what went wrong, what we've done to fix it, and what's changing from here.
What happened
The Federal home battery rebate drove a sustained surge in new customers that was significantly higher than we or the broader industry expected. Sign ups increased around five times higher than usual from 1 July and continue to accelerate as more people buy batteries and hear about Amber.
At the same time, we were completing a major billing system migration that took longer than planned. We changed billing providers so our systems could scale to support a much larger customer base, but the migration created technical challenges. Most of these billing issues are now resolved and we are in a better position, but it did cause significant delays over the last few months.
These two things (lots of growth and problems with billing) happening at the same time put enormous pressure on our customer operations team and our systems. Response times became unacceptable by our own standards, and we know the impact on customers has been frustrating and, in some cases, genuinely distressing.
Why customer service has been so hard to reach
We underestimated the impact of the growth of home batteries this year. We planned for a big uplift, but the growth we’re seeing has exceeded the entire industry’s expectations as well as the governments (who have had to top up the $2.4 billion dollar program with an additional $5 billion). As a result, we simply didn’t hire fast enough in advance and are now working to catch up.
What we've done
Improving customer service has been the company's number one priority over recent months. We are building new technology to proactively ensure you, our customers, have fewer issues that lead to contacting support, and also drastically increasing our customer service team's capacity.
Here's what we've put in place:
Significantly grown the customer operations team. We've doubled our team over the last couple of months and continue to hire aggressively so we have the capacity to handle the volume of calls and emails coming in, and clear the backlog.
Improving our product. We're working on clearer in-app information, better error messaging, and improved explanations of why SmartShift takes certain actions, so you have more visibility and confidence in what's happening with your energy.
Improved billing accuracy. Most delayed bills have been issued, and billing accuracy has improved significantly compared to six months ago. Some complex cases still take longer to resolve, particularly when there are meter configuration or network data issues, but we're working to reduce these as fast as possible.
Investing in self-service options. We're building technology solutions to help you resolve common issues, so you can get answers faster without needing to wait for our team.
Changed how we plan for demand. This has been a learning experience. We've adjusted our forecasting and resourcing approach so we're better prepared for future demand spikes.
What's changing over the next 3-6 months
Faster customer support response times. We will continue hiring aggressively and improving our internal systems so we can respond more quickly. The technology investments we're making will also help you self-serve where that makes sense.
Clearer in-app information. Better error messaging, clearer explanations of SmartShift actions, and improved forecasting so you have more visibility into what's happening with your energy.
Continued focus on billing stability. Performance is already significantly better than six months ago, and we expect to keep improving. Some challenges involve external factors like network data or hardware integrations, so we're cautious about giving a definitive timeline. But the trajectory is clear.
Why we're sharing this now
You deserve to understand what's happened and what we're doing to fix it.
Amber was built to give people more control over their energy use and more of the value that traditionally sits with retailers. When things are working as they should, you can benefit from wholesale prices, make the most of your battery, and take part in the shift to renewables. We know we haven't consistently delivered the service experience to match that promise. Fixing that is our number one focus.
We are genuinely sorry for the delays and slow responses. We know we need to do better, and we are focused on rebuilding trust by improving our systems, communicating more clearly, and lifting our support levels as quickly as possible.
Want more detail? I recently sat down with Neerav Bhatt from Electrifying Everything to talk through these challenges in more detail. If you want to watch the full conversation, you can do so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNSiR5Kh7m8
