8.1 Commitment to communities and access to energy

Access to energy of high quality, and ensuring an efficient use of that energy, is fundamental for Madrileña Red de Gas. Access to energy is essential for people, businesses and societies to develop. And the energy sector as a whole is an important source of job creation.

A good business needs good power, with a continuous supply that you pay for once you’ve consumed it, and with multiple uses. For businesses, natural gas is the best fuel option, as it ensures savings from day one, with a low installation cost, a quick start-up, continuous supply, a lower environmental footprint than fossil-fuel alternatives, and at a lower cost.

The use of natural gas is standard in laundry businesses, chemical industries, paint booths, bakeries, food production centres, foundries, infrared radiation systems, and cleaning and sterilisation systems, all with great efficiency.

Natural gas helps companies and businesses be more competitive and more efficient, which translates into cost savings. For thousands of households it means an improvement in quality of life, and significant savings in their energy bills, depending on the consumption levels involved and the fuel that it replaces.

Specifically, in 2021 we invested €13.1 million to expand the distribution network. Over the course of 2021 a natural gas supply was provided to 6,913 homes, exceeding the initial forecast by 20%. Of these, 4,647 are fitted with individual boilers and 2,266 have central boiler rooms.

NORBA tool

We maintain an active dialogue with developers, builders and thought leaders, informing them and engaging with them in terms of new developments that arise at a technical, administrative or legal level. In this context, the Spanish Gas Association (SEDIGAS) has shown its support for the creation of NORBA, a tool developed by the Thermal Engineering Group from the Engineering School at the Universidad de Sevilla, which can identify the best energy solution for a new building. In most cases, natural gas complies with CTE 2019, allows the building to be awarded the highest energy rating, A, and the construction and running costs are more favourable.

Natural gas is efficient, affordable and provides immediate domestic hot water and heating, helping to improve the quality of life for people in their homes, and the energy efficiency that it brings means a clear advantage in terms of costs when compared with newer technologies such as air-source and ground-source pumps. A study was conducted in conjunction with SEDIGAS, focusing on analysing natural gas in comparison with other energy sources.

At Madrileña Red de Gas we are committed to sustainable development and are constantly collaborating on innovative projects aimed at cleaner and more sustainable energy. As indicated in section 5.2.4. “Projects and investments aimed at stimulating energy efficiency and reducing emissions”, we collaborate with other companies in a range projects in the Region of Madrid, such as:

• The “Inspira Madrid” project, affecting the hydrogen value chain with the goal of decarbonising urban public transport fleets in Madrid.
• The Renewable Hydrogen Valley project in the Region of Madrid consists of deploying a large-scale renewable hydrogen solution in the Henares Corridor, which will mainly be used to decarbonise the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport by replacing natural gas with green hydrogen from the existing cogeneration plant, helping to meet the airport’s energy needs. The project is also designed to supply the energy needs for hydrogen-powered mobility, mainly in relation to urban transport and for medium and long distance heavy goods transport.

In our role as energy provider, we understand the vital need to respond to extraordinary situations, such as when Storm Filomena hit the region in January 2021.During the storm, the MRG natural gas distribution network, which supplies more than 880,000 customers in the Region of Madrid, remained completely operational.

From the time the storm struck, and in the wake of the freezing temperatures that followed, Madrileña Red de Gas strengthened its emergency response service and its entire field work team, formed of more than 40 people. The technical team joined up and coordinated with the operations team to resolve each and every incident that occurred as a result of the storm. From 8 January, more than 1,500 urgent warnings were received by the service, a figure much higher than the average demand (around 800 warnings are received in a normal January). As we were aware of the difficulties faced by many of our customers at that time and of the seriousness of the situation, we were working in collaboration with regional and local authorities to be able to access fault points that were hard to access due to the several inches of snow and ice that had accumulated.

8.2 Commitment to our customers and users

We set the bar very high for ourselves and for our collaborators, to help ensure our customers have the best possible experience. In 2021, we made significant improvements in terms of how we communicate with our customers and users, and how services and meter readings are managed.

The following are some of the most relevant measures implemented:

Artificial intelligence (AI) helps customers in our call centre

Continuing with our goal to simplify the customers’ journey when they contact us by telephone, in the first quarter of 2021 we completely digitalised the customer service for first-level calls to our call centre, by implementing the Amazon Lex artificial intelligence voice recognition service for customer calls.

In this case, the customer no longer has to listen to the entire recorded script and press a number on their phone’s keypad to get through to someone; instead they can use natural language to select the option that best matches the query or request they wish to make, and the artificial intelligence service helps to manage the call through automated voice recordings, if it is a query that only requires simple information, or puts the caller through to our interactive voice responses (IVRs), so that customers can provide a meter reading, confirm or reschedule the regular inspection visit or pay LPG bills via the automatic payment gateway.

All-channel implementation in the call centre

Having completed the first stage of our project to modernise our call centre, which was carried out in 2021 by dividing the service for customer calls into three service lines, depending on the complexity of the call, in 2021 we centralised how queries received through WhatsApp, the Virtual Office and suppliers are managed and responded to for the processes we currently receive most questions about: meter readings, regular inspections, home operations and customer services. As a result, call centre productivity and the degree of customer satisfaction both increased. In 2021 a total of 26,489 queries were dealt with.

Madrileña Red de Gas is revolutionising the sector by implementing a single platform for managing messages with supply companies

Following the liberalisation of the energy sector, with the exception of Gas Extremadura all other gas distribution companies exchanged messages with suppliers through the SCTD (Transport-Distribution Communication System).

On 1 October 2021, Madrileña Red de Gas launched its own platform, IOGAS, featuring new technologies to provide an improved user experience, greater control and improved visibility, while always respecting directives from the National Commission on Financial Markets and Competition (CNMC) in terms of formats and validations.

How does IOGAS help us?

• Operative control: The platform is designed to provide easy and intuitive control: determine queries sent, rejected, in progress, and so on, in real time through dashboards and personalised views, with full traceability of the various processes involved and enabling alerts to be programmed depending on the particular user’s needs.
• Validations in real time: For any query, validations occur online, verifying in real time both the validation of formats and information about the supply point in distributor’s systems, so that errors can be corrected instantly and rejections avoided.
• Integration and access facilities: IOGAS has an application programming interface (API) for online integration with suppliers’ systems, so that any system can connect to IOGAS quickly, simply and securely. It also provides the option of exchanging files via SFTP, which works as it did up to now (without having to make any changes in the systems).

  As well as the integration options, the platform features a friendly and intuitive user interface that can be accessed online and from any device, and which requires almost no training.

• Improved customer service quality: IOGAS provides more information on the traceability of a query processed, and on the situation of a supply point, and can be used by the sales channels and by Customer Services to increase first call resolution for any channel used, minimising the need to transfer calls or process complaints with the gas supplier due to a lack of information to resolve a customer’s complaint and, of course, to improve customer satisfaction.
• Security: IOGAS was developed in line with the latest advances in access, application and data security. This includes two-factor authentication, email and phone verification during the registration process, a secure password policy, communication security and full traceability of queries and modifications. As part of the IOGAS validation process, specific cyber security trials were carried out to detect and correct any possible breaches.

As well as all these improvements, the project to replace the transport-distribution communication system with IOGAS will also generate annual savings for the company.

Evolution in photo-readings: optical character recognition (OCR) for meter readings

In its efforts to improve customer meter readings, in 2021 Madrileña Red de Gas continued to lower the number customers not providing real meter readings, with a 0.5% drop to 3.2%.

Work continued to strengthen our virtual channels, with more options for customers when it comes to providing their meter reading. A total of 87% of readings were provided through the 24/7 self-service channel.

Spectacular success in regular inspections 2021: no failed visits and great flexibility in appointments

It could be said that 2021 was a different year for regular inspections; it was the year we could state that we achieved our goals.

From the outset, the volume of inspections remained above budget, and the year ended with a success rate of 97%, which translates into 10,090 inspections carried out above the target number, and an inspection failure rate of less than 0.5% (0.31% of inspections were unable to be carried out and 0.05% of missed inspections were able to be recovered on the same day).

One of our challenges was to adapt our schedules to make it easier for customers to change their appointment, without this affecting the number of successfully completed inspections. In 2021 a total of 12,8% of appointments were changed, amounting to 26,875 changes, with more being made from May, when the lockdown was eased. Madrileña Red de Gas continues to improve the service we provide for our customers.

As well as adapting to customers’ needs by making it easier for appointments to be changed, one of the key aspects of the results obtained was the ongoing communication with our customers through the various channels that were set up. These communications have undergone constant changes to adapt to customers’ demands, which we observed in the reviews, surveys and complaints that we received. Indeed, throughout the year we were able to close complaints within the established timeframe, and from the month of March 99% were closed on the same day.

In field operations, we had a quality control index of around 99% throughout the year, with no alarming cases detected.

To conclude, the most objective summary of the year may be how we are rated by our customers, which has remained at around 8 since March.

Video tutorials: how to explain ourselves better?

Traditional frequently asked questions, articles, blogs and news items are no longer the best options for understanding a concept, which is why we are creating short, simple video tutorials to help our customers understand how best to interact with us.

We identified the main doubts faced by our customers by analysing the times that they contacted us, and in collaboration with customer experience and each particular business area, we have to date produced 14 short films, with plans to keep making plenty more.

The initiative has been a success: the video on how to send my meter reading via our virtual office has been watched 48,000 times; the video on what your gas meter reading is for has been viewed 31,000 times; and how to solve anomalies in a regular inspection has received 4,000 views.

* The video tutorials can be watched via the following link: https://madrilena.es/preguntas-frecuentes/videotutoriales/

Added value in communications

At Madrileña Red de Gas we continue to improve our engagement with our customers by digital channels, using email and text messages as the main ways to communicate. Last year, 2021, was the year of added value, making it easier for customers in their dealings with us and providing them with useful information to be more efficient in their energy consumption.

The main way this was achieved was by making it even easier to send meter readings, change appointments for work in the field, and report on correcting anomalies, all digitally, and by sending a usage report to the customer after each meter reading period, with a comparison with their neighbours and within their municipality, how the weather has affected their usage levels, or the carbon footprint generated when using gas compared with other sources of energy.

¿Qué hemos logrado?

• We enabled 1.9 million actions to be carried out with a single click, without having to log in to the Virtual Office.
• More than nine million emails and texts were sent out to our customers, asking for meter readings, confirming appointments, sending the results from regular inspections, addressing complaints, etc.
• More than three million personalised consumption reports were generated.
• Digital meter readings rose from 65,000 in 2019 and 525,000 in 2020 to 542,617 in 2021.

The next challenge?

Incorporate WhatsApp as a channel of communication in certain processes, as it is one of the most frequently used digital platforms used by people who are less familiar with digital technology.

Transparency in service to the customer: COMMITMENT section on the MRG website

Our company prides itself on the transparency of its activity, its processes and its management. In this regard, and in order to make it possible for us to be compared against other companies in the sector, we created the section “Commitment” ^* on our website.

How are we doing?

En esta sección publicamos los valores trimestrales de los Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) de Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), Net Promote In this section we publish quarterly key performance indicators (KPIs) on our customer satisfaction score (CSAT), customer effort score (CES), net promoter score (NPS) and Google My Business (GMB), as well as ratios on complaints received, with a more in-depth analysis of the top five types of complaints, where we explain what they are, how we manage them and what solution we provide to try to minimise them.

* For more detailed information, please visit the website https://madrilena.es/compromiso/

Commitment

We publish our commitments on scheduled visits, customer services, our process when managing customer requests, and how our specialists act when providing personalised services.

Con esta iniciativa, ponemos a disposición de cualquier Organismo Oficial, así como de los clientes, nuestros ratios y protocolos de actuación, para que nos puedan comparar con el resto del sector, ya sea Nacional o Internacionalmente.

Positioning in Google My Business

Three years ago we set ourselves the challenge of becoming the best utility company on the market, and today we are proud to have 6,085 reviews on Google My Business, with an average score of 4.1

We started off in 2018 with a score of 1.6 and the determination to transform the relationship with our customers. We have drawn up a digital transformation plan full of initiatives to learn what our customers really think, measure the quality of our services, establish new communications channels, provide information and make other tasks easier to manage, as well as measuring the results on an ongoing basis, so as to continue to improve based on the feedback we receive.

And as a result of the feedback and scores given by our customers, we have been able to evolve and improve all our processes by providing more information and delivering greater transparency, flexibility and safety.

Positioning on LinkedIn

The Madrileña Red de Gas profile came about as part of an innovation project that a group of company staff members had developed as a social media communication channel in previous years. In 2021 the decision was made to push LinkedIn as an information channel that the company could harness to provide users with a range of company-related content. With a more professional user base, LinkedIn means we are able to get across to people the values, philosophy and innovation projects that Madrileña Red de Gas is committed to and involved in.

8.1 Social action

Madrileña Red de Gas continues collaborating with the Madrid region’s Energy Foundation. This public-sector not-for-profit foundation helps to develop regional energy policy within the European framework. It fosters, promotes and conducts energy technology research, development and application initiatives and programmes, integrating environmental protection into them all. We have contributed with a donation of €16,000.

As in previous years, in December MRG took part in Operation Kilo through the Madrid Food Bank Foundation. The campaign raised €315, equating to 283.5 kg of food, through a total of 13 donations.