The judges were looking for evidence of outstanding overall retailer performance across customer outcomes, innovation, service delivery, energy transition leadership, hardship support, operational excellence and continuous improvement.
This year's recipient demonstrated a highly coherent retail strategy built around customer wellbeing, affordability and trust.
The judges were particularly impressed by:
- Significant customer growth across services
- Leadership in time-of-use products and customer participation in flexibility programmes
- A measurable reduction in customer disconnections during a period of economic pressure
- Strong customer advocacy and complaint performance
- A commitment to customer wellbeing that extended beyond traditional retail practices
- Strong employee engagement and operational performance that supported long-term customer outcomes
Contact helps customers get better outcomes by delivering transparent value, simple and personal experiences, and genuine support when it matters most. Over FY26, Contact has strengthened its position as New Zealand’s leading multi‑services energy retailer, growing connections to over 680,000 across electricity, gas, broadband and mobile while maintaining disciplined cost‑to‑serve and markedly reducing disconnections. Our multi-product customer base has grown beyond 160,000, with more than 37% of our customers seeing great value in our product bundles. This focus on fairness, care and making it good to be home is driving strong performance for customers, the business, and shareholders long term.