New Zealand’s Favourite Natural and Bottled Gas Providers Revealed

Whether it’s piped in via a mains supply or delivered in bottles, gas is a popular fuel source in Kiwi homes. In the kitchen, a gas hob allows you to cook food with precision heat, and elsewhere around the home gas is an economical way to heat rooms and water. 

As gas is an essential utility, it’s important that gas suppliers offer their customers a 100% reliable service at an affordable price. So, to help Kiwi consumers in their search for the best gas supply, Canstar surveys gas providers and rates them for customer satisfaction.

In this year’s battle of the gas providers, Rock Gas has taken out Canstar Blue’s award for Most Satisfied Customers | Bottled Gas, and Mercury Energy has won Canstar Blue’s award for Most Satisfied Customers | Natural Gas.

To decide which gas supplier (for both natural and bottled gas) offers the best level of customer satisfaction, each was rated across the following categories:

• Overall Satisfaction
• Bill and Cost Clarity
• Customer Service
• Focus on Environment and Sustainability
• Tools and Advice
• Value for Money

Rock Gas: Our Bottled Gas Winner

Coming out on top and winning Canstar Blue’s award for Most Satisfied Customers | Bottled Gas was Rock Gas. In addition to winning 5 Stars for Overall Satisfaction, Rock Gas also took out 5 Stars for Value for Money and Bill and Cost Clarity. Also achieving a very solid result, Contact Energy won 5 Stars for Customer Service and Focus on Environment and Sustainability, and an Overall Satisfaction rating of 4 Stars.

Mercury Energy: Our Natural Gas Winner

It’s back-to-back wins for Mercury, who collected 5 Star ratings in every category – an improvement on last year’s score, which was an equal mix of 4 and 5 Star ratings. While Nova was the only other 5 Star winner in any category, for Value for Money, Genesis Energy also deserves praise for its strong 4 Star ratings across the board.

What Kiwis want

Price point is always a big pull for any product. And in our Bottled Gas category, for 32% of our respondents Value for Money was the greatest driver of satisfaction. However, Customer Service came out on top at 37% in our survey. This is understandable, if you’re relying on bottled gas to power and heat your home, it’s key to be able to rely on a provider to deliver on time and provide great service.

There aren’t too many bells and whistles attached to a natural gas supplier, so ultimately satisfaction levels were driven by the basics of Value for Money (36%) and Customer service (24%).

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A switched-on bunch

Those in our natural gas survey were on top of their gas usage: 60% said they understood the benefits of using gas as a fuel in their home; 60% understood their usage information on their gas bill; and 77% knew where their gas meter was (always good to know in the case of an emergency!).

However, fewer respondents seem to understand the benefits of switching to gas to save money, or how to find a better deal on their gas supplier. Only 14% switched to gas as a fuel to save money, and just a quarter of respondents have looked for a better deal online.

This is where Canstar can help, by doing the comparison work for you. So if you’re interested on getting the best deal on your gas supply, click on the button below for the full results of our natural gas survey, or the linked button above for our bottled gas results.

Compare Natural Gas Suppliers