By Nathan Shannon, Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative
While everyone expects the lights to be on when they want them to be on, today’s residential customers have varying expectations from their electricity providers beyond power reliability based on their individual lifestyles, values, concerns and interests.
Today’s consumers are not a monolith. That means, when it comes to improving customer satisfaction via timely and relevant customer communications, programs, rebates and other utility offerings, providers need to listen to their customers through focus groups, surveying, community events and other methods to determine their specific needs.
Through extensive consumer surveying over more than a decade, the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) has uncovered useful insights about residential electric utility customers and has developed a segmentation framework that can help providers interact with customers in their preferred manner and with the appropriate offer.
Here are three ways that utilities can make their residential customers happier:
1. Make customer communications relevant and easy to understand
Effective communications go a long way in improving the customer relationship, as corroborated in J.D. Power’s most recent customer satisfaction study, and providers can accomplish this in a few different ways. First, messaging needs to clearly highlight the benefits customers are likely to receive from participating in a program or purchasing a new technology for their home.
While consumers often say that they are interested in programs, services and technologies, several of SECC’s studies show consumers don’t always have adequate tools to support their decision-making process and this tends to be a barrier to participation. When communications clearly state the benefits customers could receive – environmental, home comfort, energy savings, etc. – their participation is likely to increase.
Our studies show consumers especially need assistance when transitioning to an electric vehicle. JEA’s Drive Electric program is a good example of how a utility can guide a consumer’s journey throughout the full transition to electrified transportation with digital tools and easy-to-understand communications.
2. Provide offers that are personalized to each consumer and easy to act on.
Second, in many of SECC’s surveys and interviews, respondents expressed a desire for personalized information that’s tailored to their specific energy usage and technologies they might have in their homes, such as an electric vehicle charger or a smart thermostat.
Regardless of their customer segment (whether they belong to the engaged and eco-conscious Green Innovators or the Energy Indifferent, who lack internal motivation to participate in energy-saving programs), today’s consumers ask providers to make it easy to participate. Whether it’s signing up for community solar or enrolling in a new rate plan, consumers do not want to jump through hoops to join. By streamlining this process, providers can engage others beyond the most ardent participants.
As Southern California Edison (SCE) transitioned customers to a time-of-use (TOU) rate, they offered customers an online rate tool that used their usage over the past 12 months to show the impact of moving to different rate options. Customers were easily able to self-select their new plan, and as a result, surveys showed a greater understanding on how to save energy with a TOU rate.
3. Showcase efforts to benefit your community and address climate change.
J.D. Power’s 2021 study also notes that customer satisfaction scores rise when electricity providers communicate to their customers about efforts to improve economic development in their communities. SECC’s surveys also find support to providers’ broader societal initiatives. For example, in SECC’s study on lower-income Americans, satisfaction with providers declined when they failed to see their providers help their communities deal with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
SECC’s studies also show that a record number of Americans are supportive of their providers’ efforts around addressing climate change. While some consumers believe this issue to be overblown (SECC’s Energy Indifferent segment, in particular), for the majority of consumers that believe providers need to address climate change, they want to hear what their providers are doing in this area and learn about ways that they can help. According to a recent study from Oracle Utilities and The Brattle Group, these consumer actions can have a major impact on meeting decarbonization goals.
Meeting the expectations of today’s consumer and improving customer satisfaction requires a holistic customer-centric approach from electricity providers. While these steps will move providers down that path, only by listening to their customers’ input and responding accordingly will providers really be able to make today’s consumers happy.
About the Author
As president and CEO of the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), Nathan Shannon leads the organization’s research, membership and policy initiatives. He came on as SECC’s deputy director in early 2015, and in this role, he grew membership almost 40% to more than 150 members. Along with his work on the Research and Policy Committees, Shannon leads member recruitment and engagement and routinely presents SECC’s research at major industry conferences and policy workshops around the country.