In 2021 Flux transferred 200,000-plus Meridian Energy customers from a legacy system to the Flux platform. Here’s why they did it and how it went.

The backstory

Meridian Energy is New Zealand’s largest energy gentailer, producing 35 per cent of New Zealand’s electricity via renewable sources and powering everything from tiny homes to huge businesses. 

As a business at the forefront of decarbonised energy and with ambitious growth plans, Meridian had innovative ideas and technological advancements it wanted to deliver to create the future of energy. However, Meridian’s legacy platform was inflexible, slow, and had become an impediment to achieving these goals. 

“We think many of the legacy platforms will not keep up with the pace of change in customer service, product innovation, or ease of implementation,” 

Lisa Hannifin - Meridian Energy Chief Customer Officer

Visionary companies don’t get ahead by looking backwards or relying on outdated tech, and Meridian’s requirement was clear - it needed modern technology that sits ahead of the rapidly evolving advancements in customer service and product innovation today and into the future, while also reducing cost to serve.

Why Meridian chose Flux

Consumers have little sympathy for the reasons why power companies may struggle to provide solutions that meet the demands of the climate crisis and future tech. Meridian knew this and needed a solution that would enable it to deliver new products to market quickly and enable it to maintain its competitive edge. 

Flux’s software is built to adapt to an energy sector that is constantly evolving. Designed for flexibility and scalability, it enables enterprise-level energy businesses like Meridian to quickly and easily design and launch innovative products that support a decarbonised and tech focused energy future.

Meridian chose Flux’s world-class SaaS application because it knew it would be able to better service its retail customers with relevant, future-focused products while at the same time reducing cost-to-serve through aligned retail platforms and support structures. Operating on a more flexible platform also meant Meridian would be faster to market, and importantly, maintain its competitive advantage.

Our approach

Flexibility and integration are key to how we work at Flux. We pride ourselves on being nimble and agile, able to scale up or down at speed. We’re also smart enough to know that we can’t do everything on our own, which is why we focus on smart integration, working with trusted, best-in-class services like Amazon Web Services, Gorilla and SendGrid. 

This attitude to flexibility, agility and integration stood us in good stead during the Meridian migration project where our teams were scaled to get the work done on time and budget. Conducting this size migration required significant technical knowledge and a deep understanding of our client’s needs coupled with high levels of trust, excellent communication, and gold standard client servicing. 

Our service model is designed to solve problems and create mutually beneficial solutions and successes. This means that all our clients are provided with a dedicated service team.

“In a long-running project like this migration, good relationships are everything. So is being able to roll with the punches”

Lisa Hannifin - Meridian Energy Chief Customer Officer 

Making it happen

Over 200,000 of Meridian’s customers were seamlessly transferred from its legacy system to Flux. Our business-led, iterative and agile approach ensured the migration was completed with no significant service failures or customer experience issues.

“With the Flux platform our customers require fewer service interventions and have less need to contact our Customer Care teams, while our agents can better service our customers faster. These improvements free our people up to spend time working on high value customer activities – rather than day-to-day servicing – and managing an ever-growing customer base without growing our staffing levels.”

Lisa Hannifin - Meridian Energy Chief Customer Officer 

The future

Flux plays a vital role in simplifying the complex digital needs of energy retailers that are committed to transforming the energy market. We’re here as a trusted partner, enabling the billing of more than $2bn worth of complex connection revenue in NZ alone, helping energy retailers to move faster, reduce cost to serve, create seamless customer experiences, and reach new markets. 

As our work with Meridian Energy has shown, we enable leading energy businesses to meet - and exceed - their goals. Why not find out what we can do for you?