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Interview That page could itself be summed up as with meter readers and fitters and spending "Five or six years ago, "becoming our customers' trusted energy time in call centres. You see that actually our the debate was whether partners". As Cocker admits, it sounds decepcolleagues really do want to help our customwe're going to meet our tively simple: "We want to provide simple, ers. There's this disconnect between what fair, comparable products, at fair prices, and individual colleagues want to do internally, sustainability targets. have great customer service; help our cusand the perception outside." There was very little tomers control and understand and manage So what went wrong? Cocker blames ristheir energy use and reduce energy waste; ing bills and the overcomplication of the discussion of the cost" and run our operation as efficiently and market. "As an industry, we focused on the effectively as possible. If we do those things mantra of choice and choice actually led then we'll earn a fair profit." to complexity," he says. "The industry historically has Eon's retail results are looking good, giving Cocker been engineering focused, so you focused on the power a strong position. Profits in the UK retail business were stations that needed to be built, and the wires, and not up in the first half of this year, with Ebitda rising to £273 really on explaining that to our customers. Then the million from £238 million in the same period last year. people who came into the industry came from different Cocker puts this down to cost efficiencies as well as the sectors where [what they were selling] isn't really such higher demand occasioned by the long winter. Generaa vital component of your life. The so-called marketing tion and upstream profits were significantly down, howdisciplines came in and were around choice and innovaever, to £159 million from £399 million Ebitda, reflecting tion. Of course we do need some choice and innovation, the closure of Kingsnorth power station and other but we've got to get the balance." changes in the energy mix. Cocker decided that the situation called for a total Cocker has to deal with a number of factors outside reset of Eon's relationship with its customers, and in his control: group profits are plunging as European utiliJanuary 2012 launched the "Reset" programme to do ties feel the squeeze, and energy suppliers in the UK are just that. A six-month initiative ("part of the culture the favourite whipping boy of politicians and the popuchange was to show we can move quickly"), it entailed lar press. Cocker himself has been hauled up before a a 28,000-strong customer panel, intense research with select committee with fellow chief executives in a display frontline staff and the launch of the customer council. of public pillorying. Meanwhile, Eon's group profits are Similar in many ways to the customer challenge groups plunging in response to the European financial crisis – currently feeding into the water sector's price review, the down 42 per cent year on year for the second quarter of customer council was designed to "hold a mirror" to the 2013. How do these elements affect Cocker's plans? organisation, showing where it let customers down and "It is always challenging to secure investment," he how it could do better. Eon drafted in business big shot points out. "The systems investment has been in our and former Asda chief executive Allan Leighton to chair computer systems as well as in our training, and a lot of the council, who was not a man to compromise. Staff it is about making things simpler internally. If you make across the business, from the front line to Cocker himself, things simpler then although it costs to invest, in the reported back to Leighton and the council, having what long run it is less costly to operate." Cocker calls with a smile "very challenging discussions". Cocker is similarly balanced in his comments on the These resulted in tangible actions. Within the sixpolitical situation. Asked about the select committee month programme and on the advice of the customer hearing, he allows himself a brief smile before replying: council, Eon reduced its electricity price by 6 per cent "I think that's just part of the way that political discourse and simplified its direct debits, introducing automatic works in the UK. If you want to run a business or be senrefunds for customers who were overpaying. It also ior in a business like this then that's part of the territory." ended the practice, widespread in the industry, of offerDealing with the Byzantine minutiae of energy policy ing significant discounts to new customers. Cocker is also part of the territory, and Cocker has gone public says: "Deep discounting seems to me to be fundamenwith his concerns on the carbon floor price. Today he tally unfair because its offering a relatively large sum of emphasises the importance of making sure contracts money off to new customers, taking that away from existfor difference run for long enough to balance price presing customers – so we flipped that, to reward loyalty." sures with return on investment. He acknowledges that Eon demonstrated political prescience with its decithe recession has changed the dialogue around Europe's sion to simplify and reduce its tariffs just a week before carbon reduction targets, but believes it is too late to prime minister David Cameron's intervention in the move the goalposts. "Five or six years ago, the debate market. Under the "Best Deal For You" initiative, it now was around whether we're going to meet our sustainaims to offer every customer the tariff most suited to their ability targets. There was very little discussion of the circumstances. cost of meeting them. Now it has flipped and the cost, The Reset programme lasted six months – "a long the affordability for customers, is very, very important." enough time in which to do some things, but a short Could we move or change the targets? "It's too late. From enough time to really put the pressure on" – and Cocker an investor point of view, consistency of policy is really is confident it was a success. Eon has since picked up very important – 2020 is really quite close." much-prized accolades for customer service, including With that in mind, what does Cocker want to achieve first place in the Uswitch customer satisfaction survey, in his tenure as chief executive, and how far has he though it declined to provide customer retention figures. come? "We set out on a three-year journey as a team to By the end of the Reset period, Cocker had fully really simplify everything that we do and make it much assembled his management team and board, and they easier for our customers. I would say we've made good were ready to plan further ahead. "We spent some time progress, so come back and let's have a chat in a year's with our teams reviewing our strategy off the back of time," he says. We'll be there, eager to see if doing the Reset. What we'd inherited as a team was a much more right thing can really translate to a competitive advancomplicated set of strategies. It was 57 pages and we tage in today's stormy energy market. simplified it down to one page," he says. 10 | 27TH SEPTEMBER - 3rd OCTOBER 2013 | UTILITY WEEK