Customer Relations
Our activities in a variety of areas—whether it’s community investment, workforce diversity, ethics, procurement or environmental protection—help achieve greater harmony, efficiency and prosperity.
While our customer base is diverse and varied, our approach to customer service is not. Responsive customer relations and safe, reliable operations are critical to our business success.
Business Context and our Strategic Response
Listening and responding to our customers' needs is a fundamental priority for us.
We have a wide range of customers—from energy producers and marketers who ship and/or store their products on our oil and gas storage and transportation networks, to refiners and processors, to the residential, commercial and industrial customers who consume the natural gas we distribute.
Safe, reliable operations, combined with responsive customer service, help us retain existing customers and attract new business. Both are critical elements of our business success and essential for creating long-term value for our shareholders.
Our Approach
We fulfill our commitments to customers by: ensuring the safety of our systems and delivering the highest levels of reliability; making sure we are efficient so that they pay the lowest practical costs for our services; and delivering our growth projects on time and on budget, while attaining high standards of safety, quality, and environmental and regulatory compliance.
Natural gas storage and transportation customers in Ontario have a choice. Customers choose to do business at the Dawn Hub and ship natural gas from Dawn to Parkway on our transportation system because our services provide the best customer value. Attributes of price and quality (product offering, customer service, relationships and image) are weighed by customers in determining their value.
Our customer-facing teams across the Company aim to provide consistent and reliable service at all times. Our teams are constantly looking for opportunities to improve by: listening to customers to understand their needs; proactively bringing important information to their attention; and being responsive and addressing issues effectively and in a timely fashion to their satisfaction.
Our Customers
Each of our business units has a unique set of customers and uses a tailored approach to communicate and respond to them. Our two utilities (Enbridge Gas Distribution and Union Gas) amalgamated on Jan. 1, 2019 to form Gas Distribution and Storage. The rest of this section refers to both utilities as they operated as separated entities for the period under review.
Our customers are … |
Our customers need … |
We communicate with and respond to our customers through … |
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LP |
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Producers, marketers and refiners. |
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GTM |
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Onshore and offshore (Gulf of Mexico) shippers, including local distribution companies, producers, marketers, power plants and end users. |
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Utilities |
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EGD |
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Approximately 2.2 million residential, commercial, institutional and industrial users in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State. |
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UG |
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Our Performance
Providing Consistent and Reliable Service to All of our Customers
We monitor customer satisfaction through regular formal meetings and informal contacts, and we measure their satisfaction through reputation studies and customer-satisfaction surveys conducted by third-party providers.
Customer Satisfaction Measurement |
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Engagement Tactics Used |
Customer Satisfaction |
LP |
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GTM |
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Utilities |
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EGD |
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UG |
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GDS Initiatives
The amalgamated entity GDS is in the early stages of integrating the websites of EGD and UG. In 2018, EGD launched a new Voice of the Customer tool (Qualtrics) which allows us to gather customer feedback through a new channel. This tool enables us to capture customer feedback in high velocity, and provides immediate perspective on how we’re doing and where we need to react. The new EGD customer-facing website (enbridgegas.com) also went live in 2018, providing greater responsiveness and ease of navigation. In addition, a number of self-service functionalities are being added to EGD’s My Account tool throughout 2019. For example, My Account provides customers with billing insight, more consumption information and analysis, transaction history and their communication preferences. Another exciting initiative will be the 2019 launch of the Chatbot, enabling customer inquiries to be handled automatically without human intervention. The Chatbot will help customers with billing inquiries, move requests, payment arrangements and general FAQs. The Chatbot will integrate with the live agent capability as needed.
GDS entities also continue to engage with their customers through their wide range of DSM offerings. From homeowners to large industrial facilities, GDS provide incentives to customers to encourage them to adopt energy-saving equipment and operating practices that reduce natural gas consumption.
For more information on our DSM programs, please see the Energy Transition and Climate Change section of this report, the Energy Efficiency Tips section of EGD’s website or the Conservation First section of the UG website.
Safeguarding Customer Privacy and Data
At all levels of our company, we have robust systems and thorough processes in place to help ensure our customers' and stakeholders' privacy and data are protected. In 2018, neither LP, GTM, nor the Utilities received any significant substantiated complaints regarding breaches of customer privacy or losses of customer data.
Cybersecurity has been identified as a top risk for the Company. Therefore, Enbridge has developed and implemented a risk-based cybersecurity control framework to manage its cybersecurity risks and measure the effectiveness of controls. It addresses cybersecurity threats unique to Enbridge and in keeping with best practice. Specific areas of focus in 2018 included:
- Increased monitoring and response capabilities for security-relevant events.
- Increased security awareness and training for employees and contractors.
- Enhanced controls for anti-phishing and anti-malware.
- Reduction of access to systems and data through privileged account management.
Enbridge is committed to earning and maintaining our customers’ trust by continuing to:
- Ensure we respect legal privacy requirements in collecting, handling and safeguarding personal information.
- Work with the data security team to carefully consider privacy and data security risks on new projects, system upgrades and/ or initiatives.
- Provide privacy training and awareness to personnel who handle personal information.
Customer Satisfaction Measures |
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2018 |
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LP |
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GTM |
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EGD |
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UG |
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1EGD measures customer satisfaction through its Customer Satisfaction Index, which assesses customers’ perceptions of EGD’s service performance on a wide range of customer touch points.