How Orion streamlined incident reporting with Snap Send Solve

At a glance

Organisation: Orion NZ
Network size: 229,000+ customers, 8,000 km² across Christchurch and Canterbury
Use cases: Outages, graffiti, copper theft, storm events, vandalism
Partner since: 2022

The Challenge

Orion is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s fastest growing electricity networks, managing infrastructure across remote rural areas, regional towns and the city of Christchurch. With rising expectations for speed, safety and transparency, Orion needed a smarter way to manage community reports and respond to network issues.

Orion faced four key challenges:

• Low quality reports: Incoming reports via phone or email were often vague or lacked photos, making locating, triaging and prioritisation difficult.
• No customer feedback loop: Residents had no visibility into issue resolution or timelines.
• Rising community expectations: Speed, transparency and communication were increasingly expected.

Orion’s Smart Switch

New Zealand, and specifically the Christchurch region, has long been an area of high Snap Send Solve usage; so in 2022, Orion made the strategic decision to join the platform, meeting their customers where they already were.

1. Faster triage with photo and location data

With a 90% photo attach rate on Orion reports, plus built-in geolocation, Snap Send Solve gives teams clear, immediate context for every report. This allows prioritisation, ownership confirmation, and a reduction in unnecessary dispatch.

2. Closing the loop with in-app messaging 

Orion’s support team uses Snapper Messaging Templates to communicate back to Snappers directly within the app, reaching them on the platform where they submitted their reports. Since launch, contact rates have risen from 80.7% to 92.6% — a sign of improved engagement and trust.

3. Storm-ready community reporting

When a major storm was predicted in October 2025 prior to the weather event Orion promoted Snap Send Solve across radio, web, and social media.

All storm-related Snap Send Solve reports were resolved within 24 hours.

4. Streamlined processes

Our team links Snap reports to internal incident numbers, but the structure of Snap data still speeds things up.

Why It Matters

• 100% of storm-related Snap reports resolved in 24 hours

Snap Send Solve enabled Orion to prioritise resulting in faster field action, even during high volumes.

• Faster, safer decisions

Photo evidence helps distinguish high-risk from low-risk faults, improving safety and efficiency. 98.6% of Snap Send Solve reports sent to Orion contain a photo.

• 12.5% higher customer satisfaction

Orion’s CSAT is well above the NZ industry average.

• Increased community activation 

Graffiti and safety reports now flow in consistently — up to 40 per day — giving Orion a clearer picture of issues on the ground.

• Better public safety outcomes

Snap Send Solve is our preferred method for reporting issues on our network.

What’s next for Orion?

• API integration to automate workflows and further reduce admin
  
  
• AI-assisted triage and image classification
  
  
• Duplicate detection to prevent multiple reports of the same issue
  
  
• Broader awareness that Snap Send Solve can be used for more than graffiti

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