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Nearly 360,000 New Zealanders flock to website to save money

Wednesday 17 August 2011, 11:42AM

By DraftFCB PR

504 views

Two months since the launch of The Electricity Authority’s ‘What’s My Number’ campaign, which directs consumers to www.whatsmynumber.org.nz to find out how much they can save on their electricity bills, approximately 360,000 New Zealanders have visited the website to find out how much they can save on their electricity bills. This represents estimated potential savings for New Zealanders of over $57 million annually.

The `What’s My Number’ campaign, conducted by the Authority in partnership with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Consumer NZ, aims to help New Zealanders make more informed choices about their electricity suppliers. Since the launch, the campaign has seen a 47% increase in the number of people switching electricity suppliers.

The www.whatsmynumber.org.nz website enables people to quickly identify their estimated savings using a simple calculator.  People wanting to access the estimated savings can then link to Consumer NZ’s Powerswitch site www.powerswitch.org.nzto confirm a new deal and initiate the switch to a new supplier.   

The campaign was prompted by the fact that consumers’ inclination to change electricity suppliers was low – surveys showed only 5% of eligible New Zealanders were actively looking at switching electricity suppliers, but the research also indicated that 50% said they would switch if approached with a better deal.

 

Some of the statistics from the campaign to date include:

Metric

Numbers

Number of unique visitors towww.whatsmynumber.org.nz

359,756

Estimated savings

$57 million

Switches for June 2011

43,920 (Daily average 1,464 an increase of 58% over June 2010

Switches for July 2011

42,305 (Daily average 1,365 an increase of 37% over July 2010

 

“These results show that since the launch, New Zealanders are continuing to take advantage of proactive savings on their electricity bill,” said Authority Chief Executive, Carl Hansen.

“As a direct result of the campaign, we have seen several electricity suppliers offering consumers better deals and service and increasing their activity to recruit and retain customers. A primary objective of the campaign was to increase competition in the market place so it is excellent to see evidence of that, ” said Authority Chief Executive, Carl Hansen.

For more information visit www.whatsmynumber.org.nz.