Adapting to Change... Meter Reading and Billing Services through the COVID-19 Pandemic

“Behind the scenes our EnergyTec Team has been committed to addressing challenges and solving critical problems for our clients to ensure that services are continued to be delivered like “business as usual”.

The last year has been challenging and many businesses have had to change the way in which they deliver services.

Despite lockdown measures and phased restrictions it has still been extremely important to maintain a regular meter reading and billing service to our clients, including commercial, retail, strata and residential sectors. During these phases, EnergyTec has continued provided meter reading services as an essential service, committed to supporting clients by providing accurate readings, bill reconciliations and tenancy statements.

We have developed specific protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic for meter reading that will ensure the safety of our community and our teams.

This includes for the meter readers on site:

• Wearing appropriate personal protective equipment.
• Washing hands with hand sanitiser if hand washing facilities not available.
• Maintaining social distancing with anyone else on-site.
• Tracking and monitoring movements of field services team in relation to medium-high risk COVID-19 exposure sites.

Where access to a property is not available (such as during lockdown phases), EnergyTec try to re schedule a suitable time to come back to read the meters.

Where a reading is unable to be safely taken within a timely manner, EnergyTec has a reliable methodology for estimation of electricity consumption to continue the billing cycle without disruption.

Why is it important to continue the billing cycle without disruption?

There are a number of benefits to ensuring consistency of tenancy statements including;

• It assists the strata/property manager in its critical role of maintaining a consistent cash flow for the property;
• It is the obligation of the owner to pay for the utility bills and prompt tenancy bills aid in cost recovery; and
• To minimise tenant complaints of inconsistency in payments and disruption and issues with managing personal cash flow in uncertain times.

Looking to the future….

Our Technical team has continued to deliver meter network audits and upgrades, embedded network conversions and the project management of solar and integration into our billing cycle.

EnergyTec has been able to navigate its way through this unprecedented time, continuing to deliver core meter reading and billing services to our valued clients, and will continue to in the future.