SSEN's Connections Customer Steering Panel has recently held the latest round of its biannual meetings in Perth and Southampton.
The panel aims to provide a regular forum for the company's senior management team to meet with customers face-to-face and hear first hand about their connections experiences. There are two panels, one based in SSEN's distribution area in Scotland, the other in its distribution region of central southern England. Collectively this group of customers helps to represent the views of the diverse range of individuals and organisations that connect to SSEN's network everyday.
The latest meeting of the south-based group was held at the Botley Park Hotel in Southampton, and the other session was in Perth's Station Hotel. Both sessions were well attended by a wide range of panel members, both existing and new. Colin Nicol, SSE's MD (Networks) gave one of the opening speeches on both days, and kept a keen eye on the group discussions which are an integral part of the day, and Andy Huthwaite, Director of Connections and Commercial spoke at each event about the importance of open and honest feedback and how it helps SSEN deliver even better customer service.
Topics discussed by the steering panel included SSEN's proposed plans and commitments for 2018-2019 as well as updates and feedback on the company's new procedures and processes.
Guest speaker at the Southampton event was Felicity Jones from Everoze who delivered a presentation reflecting on the customer perspective when connecting to SSEN's network. Perth's guest speaker was Randolph Brazier from the Energy Networks Association, who gave attendees an overview of the Open Networks Project, a major energy industry initiative that will transform the way both local Distribution Networks and national Transmission Networks will operate and work for customers.
SSEN's Connections Customer Steering Panel meets twice a year, with the next sessions due to be held in autumn.