Executive Summary – Energy Retailers Q1 2025
Introduction
In an industry where switching providers takes minutes and loyalty is paper-thin, the phone experience remains one of the most powerful levers energy retailers can pull — for better or worse. When a single call can win or lose a customer, every second counts, and every interaction matters.
ACXPA’s independent assessment of Australia’s leading energy retailers in Q1 2025 reveals a sector that continues to perform well overall, ranking second out of seven sectors for Customer Experience. Using our national Contact Centre CX Standards, we evaluated over 80 data points across Accessibility, Agent Mastery, and Overall CX — providing a real-world view of what customers experience when they pick up the phone.
ENGIE set new benchmarks with record-breaking results for both CX and wait times, while Energy Australia continued its dominance in agent performance. At the same time, lagging retailers like AGL and Alinta remained stuck at the bottom of the rankings, and the sector saw a slight dip in its overall CX score — proof that progress isn’t guaranteed.
This executive summary highlights who’s excelling, who’s falling behind, and where the greatest opportunities lie for energy retailers looking to stand out in a crowded, high-stakes market.
Top Performers
✅ Best Overall CX Performer – ENGIE (73.4%)
ENGIE returned to the top of the leaderboard with its highest CX score on record, edging out Red Energy (72.7%). It’s the third time in five quarters ENGIE has led the sector.
📈 Top Accessibility Performer – ENGIE (95.7%)
ENGIE also delivered the best Accessibility result ever recorded for Energy Retailers, setting a new benchmark for how quickly and easily customers can reach a live agent.
⭐️ Best Agent Mastery – ENERGY AUSTRALIA (66.4%)
Energy Australia continues to set the standard in quality, leading the sector in Agent Mastery for the fourth time in five quarters with consistently high-performing frontline interactions.
💡 Industry Insight:
Overall CX performance dipped slightly in Q1 2025 (–0.6 pts from Q4 2024 and –0.8 pts from Q1 2024), but Energy Retailers still ranked second among all industry sectors – trailing only Internet Service Providers at 61.1%.
Biggest CX Challenges
📉 Ongoing Performance Struggles
AGL (–4.8 pts) and Alinta (–7.9 pts) were the only two energy retailers to decrease their Overall CX rankings from the previous quarter, with one or the other consistently in last place each quarter since reporting began in Q3 2023, suggesting ongoing challenges in meeting call demand and agent training and coaching.
🧠 Skill Gaps in Agent Mastery
Across the sector, the quality of agent interactions remains well below best practice as measured by the Contact Centre CX Standards. The spread is significant – Q1 2025 saw highs of 73.7% (Energy Australia) and lows of 35.3% (Origin), resulting in a range of experiences for customers shopping around, providing opportunities for energy retailers to stand out in a competitive market.
😡 It’s Tough Getting Through to a Live Agent
While some retailers offer fast, frictionless access with minimal menus, others are forcing prospective customers through up to 4 layers of menu options and over a minute of mandatory messages – creating unnecessary barriers at a critical point of first contact.
🏆 Key Wins
📞 Energy Retailers have maintained a high call answer rate of 99.2%, ensuring minimal new opportunities are wasted.
⏱️ Record-Breaking Wait Time – ENGIE
ENGIE has achieved average wait times of under 3 seconds for the past two consecutive quarters, the leading result of all contact centres measured (equal with Dodo Internet).
📈 Soft Skills are on the Rise
Agent Mastery, which measures the soft skills and behaviours of frontline agents, has improved for four consecutive quarters.
Recognising Call Centre Excellence in the Energy Sector
Congratulations to the top-performing energy retailers delivering exceptional customer experiences via their call centres in Q1 2025.
These rankings are based on independent mystery shopping assessments, using real customer enquiries to evaluate how effectively providers support Australians looking to switch plans or connect new energy services.
Recognition in these rankings highlights retailers who combine accessibility, clarity, and service excellence to build trust and convert enquiries into customers.
These interactions often represent key acquisition moments where strong first impressions directly impact market share.
Quarterly Trend
Overall CX
Energy Retailers
The Overall CX Score is the most important metric in our benchmarking program – a single, weighted score that reflects how easy it is for customers to reach a contact centre and the quality of the experience once connected.
As the defining measure of customer experience, the Overall CX Score blends Accessibility (30%) and Agent Mastery (70%) to reflect both access and impact – with a greater emphasis on the agent’s role in shaping outcomes. Penalties are applied for major breakdowns to ensure a true picture of performance from the customer’s perspective.
Key Metrics Trend – Energy Retailers (12-Month View)
The chart below highlights a 12-month trend across three core CX performance metrics for Australian energy retailers:
- Overall CX – A weighted composite score reflecting the end-to-end customer experience, factoring in accessibility, agent quality, and call handling efficiency.
- Accessibility – The ease of reaching a human agent.
- Agent Mastery – The quality and effectiveness of agent conversations.
While Overall CX dipped marginally in Q1 2025, the decline was primarily due to a drop in Accessibility, driven by a 13-second increase in average wait times across the sector. Encouragingly, Agent Mastery continued its steady improvement, softening the impact and pointing to ongoing gains in frontline capability.
Overall CX
This is the headline metric – representing the total customer experience across every stage of the call journey. It’s calculated using a weighted combination of the Accessibility and Agent Mastery scores, providing a holistic view of how well energy retailers are delivering end-to-end service during key sales interactions.
Accessibility
This measures how easily and quickly prospective customers can reach a real person. It includes navigating phone menus, clarity of options, queue times, and whether callers successfully speak with a representative. Higher scores reflect smoother, more customer-friendly access experiences.
Agent Mastery
This evaluates the quality and professionalism of frontline service. It includes how well retail energy call centre agents greet, listen, explain plan options, handle moving enquiries, and support switching decisions – along with empathy, clarity, and overall service delivery. It’s a direct measure of agent capability during high-value conversations.
Learn more about the Australian Contact Centre CX Standards that power these assessments.