In March 2022, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) introduced the Better Bills Guideline which sets out how energy retailers must design bills for consumers and what content they must include. BETA partnered with the AER to understand the impact of the Guideline on consumers’ comprehension of bill content and their confidence to engage in the energy market.
We undertook 3 research activities:
- Monitored Energy Made Easy website (EME) searches using a pop-up survey
- Interviewed consumers and collected eye tracking data looking at pre- and post-implementation bills from 9 retailers
- Invited energy consumer experts to review pre- and post-implementation bills from 9 retailers
Our research shows that the Better Bills Guideline has been effective in simplifying and clarifying bills to support consumer comprehension. It has also led to increased consumer engagement in the energy market. A bigger proportion of people compared plans on EME after seeing it mentioned on their bill (23%) compared to before the Guideline was implemented (7%). More than 60% of people visiting EME after seeing it mentioned on their bill had not previously switched retailers, showing that the Guideline is effective in supporting consumers who may not have otherwise compared plans on EME.
BETA also did research to support improvements and evaluation of the EME website, see Empowered to switch: A partnership to improve the Energy Made Easy comparison website (online).
BETA previously did research to inform the development and implementation of the Better Bills Guideline, see Electricity information to fit the bill, 2018 and Improving energy bills, 2021.
