Octopus Around the World: New Zealand

Octopus Energy powers around 5,000 customers across New Zealand, looked after by a lovely team in the capital Wellington, who are also creating awesomely innovative smart tariffs and products to give Kiwi’s access to affordable, green power.

First up, I chat to Liam, Operations Manager in our New Zealand office.

I met Liam 5 years ago, when we were a pair of newbies joining Octopus in Leicester. We were both amongst the first 150 people at the company and amongst the first 50 people to help customers from the Leicester office. We were a close team and at after-work drinks we’d often sit and chat about all our hopes and dreams for our new roles at Octopus. We all knew back then that the always kind and hard-working Liam was going to go far. Now, he gets to recreate the magic of the early days by helping a new Octopus grow in New Zealand.

Liam joined Octopus in December 2017 as one of the first energy specialists in the Leicester office. A few months later, he was made Team Leader and continued in that role for about 3 years in the UK. One day, he mentioned to his manager offhandedly how much he’d like to move to New Zealand in the future. A month later, we all found out Octopus was heading to NZ – and Liam’s manager casually told the whole team he would be moving over to become their Head of Operations (to his, and everyone else’s great surprise!

Aside from looking after customers in New Zealand, the team here have another particularly unique role in the business: supporting UK customers overnight to ensure 24/7 customer support while the UK team sleeps. I asked Liam a bit more about it:

A 13 hour time difference means that just as the UK’s support teams are finishing work for the day, Team NZ is waking up. Effectively, this ensures customers are always getting 24/7 support – especially important when it comes to emergencies.

On the super busy days, they also provide a magical bit of extra help to the UK teams. Like this past December, when NZ dropped everything to focus on processing tens of thousands of credit refund requests extra speedily to make sure customers got their cash back in time for Christmas.

Energy specialist Jamie remembers one particularly special exchange he had with a customer who’d joined us from an energy company that had gone under. They were desperately in need of a refund from this previous supplier, but we hadn’t received any customer balance information from their previous company: ‘It was coming up to Christmas whilst we were waiting for the information, and I just knew we had to find a way to make this work for the customer. The finance team couldn’t approve the refund with no information, so I decided to cancel his monthly Direct Debit so he wouldn’t have to pay for electricity for a few months, as his refund would cover his usage. They were thrilled and I feel lucky we are empowered enough at Octopus to think outside the box to find solutions that work for everyone.’

Ops Team Leader Rohan holds an Octopus record for responding to 2000 emails in a week (that’s about 400 a day) during a particularly busy period. ‘My manager was so impressed he bought me a cricket story voucher as he knows I’m a big fan’, he tells me.

You might think the time difference would cause a bit of a divide between the team and customers, but the NZ team are so lovely and dedicated, that’s not the case. Recently, Rohan even called a customer in the UK at 1 am NZ time to resolve a smart meter issue. ‘The customer was really happy that I called, and that his voice mattered and he still gets in touch with me directly whenever he has an issue.

Jamie, energy specialist and smart metering expert in the NZ team since 2021, was born and raised in Wellington – and he wouldn’t have it any other way. The city has a population of about 200,000 people but feels a lot smaller. You can walk across the entire city in a few hours, and it has a quaint feel, like those little villages in Netflix rom coms where the characters are always bumping into people they know at their local cafe. There is a real sense of closeness and community that is mirrored in the Octopus office.

Rohan’s one of the Wellington team leaders. A man of frequent travel, he’s spent years living in India and Nigeria. He tells me the biggest difference in Wellington is the quiet. ‘I’m used to cities with millions of people, so coming to New Zealand in the middle of the lockdown was a strange and eerily quiet experience.’ After a few hilarious stories of the friendly chaos and loudness he is used to back home, he admits ‘I’ve gotten used to it now and New Zealand has been so kind to me. Wellington is such a quaint, gorgeous place and the people are so lovely over here.’

And as for Liam — he’s fitting right in.

Rohan joined as an energy specialist one and a half years ago, as the 14th person in the office. A mechanical engineer, he moved to New Zealand to do his Masters in Renewable Energy as it’s a hub for emerging renewable technologies. ‘I applied to Octopus as its vision to bring our world to Net Zero aligned with my own.’

After a month or two of working as an energy specialist, he was drawn to a path in leadership and despite some challenges, he kept trying until it worked out: ‘I love our office, I’m really grateful for the safe space we have created’.

Liam tells me he spent a lot of time thinking about the Octopus values he learnt on day one. Values like empowering the entire team, and treating everyone like adults. ‘I really wanted to maintain that level of freedom and trust we have in our teams. I told everyone very early on that they didn’t need to ask for permission all the time, and that I trusted them to put the customers’ interests first.

Working flexible hours from Kenya I can personally attest to how flexible Octopus is when it comes to working hours, holidays and the best ways to support customers. If there is one thing that all Octopus offices have in common, it’s the golden guideline; Just do the right thing.

‘It took a little while to instil that motto in the team as it was so different to what most people were used to from previous jobs, but I’m really proud of how everyone has applied themselves.’.

Liam has also adopted the Octopus staple of ‘pickles’ where a crack team of people are brought together to resolve a current problem area whether it is to improve staff wellness or customer happiness.

The team observe some important cultural celebrations not everyone may have heard of across the pond – like Matariki, which marks the start of the Māori New Year.

As a NZ business, it’s so important New Zealand’s indigenous Māori culture is reflected in the company. And as a British import in NZ, there’s still so much we have to learn about the storied and intricate Māori history, battling against imperialism and continued oppression.

We have so much to learn from Māori culture, particularly when it comes to protecting Earth.

A central principle is kaitiakitanga, or environmental guardianship and protection. Māori view Taiao (Earth) holistically. Their wellbeing and identities are interconnected to Taiao. As members of hapū (kinship groups), they have responsibilities and deep knowledge of their rohe pōtae (homelands).

Staff wellness is a huge priority at Octopus, and Liam was determined to keep the focus, particularly, as he was setting up the office in the midst of a pandemic and energy crisis.

Liam, Rohan and Jamie tell me the office is filled with support and they have created a kind and encouraging atmosphere. Many people in the office often hang out for group lunches or dinner and drinks after work.

Liam tells me they’ll continue supporting UK customers, helping with overnight emergencies, and developing as a NZ energy supplier too.

New Zealand has nearly 100% smart meter uptake, and often upwards of 80% renewables powering the country (mostly hydro power) – the soil’s ripe for super innovative green tariffs. They’re creating their own versions of Octopus smart tariffs like Intelligent Octopus, and they’ve recently installed the country’s first ever vehicle to grid home EV charger, so that in the not too distant future, kiwi drivers could use their car to power their house.

After our chat, it becomes clear to me that the Wellington office is just our first foray into this part of the world, and the first step to a new frontier.