Customer engagement: best practices defined?

Phil Carson | Oct 23, 2011

 

The relentless river of information often obscures what actually works, a notion captured by the phrase "drowning in data, thirsty for knowledge."

So a group composed of utilities, vendors, consultants and consumer advocates—all with varied interests in aiding the uptake of grid modernization programs—has sought to discern what's working in consumer engagement.

Thus the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative's (SGCC) "Excellence in Consumer Engagement" report, due for release later today, presents 10 best practices, drawn from about 150 programs at a score of utilities.

The study focused on "mature" programs—in advanced metering infrastructure, energy efficiency and direct load control—that had track records with metrics establishing their effectiveness. Metrics included program enrollment rates and the number of complaints, according to Matt Dinsmore, an energy practice lead at Altman, Vilandrie & Co., which worked on the SGCC's report. 

"The industry has learned how to best engage customers," Patty Durand, executive director of the SGCC, told me last week. "So the SGCC has collected and synthesized these practices. It's not a mystery. Well-documented steps are available. And this report confirms that we know what works."

That's a fairly bold statement, given what's contained in the report itself. Let's take a closer look.

The SGCC report refers to its findings as "tenets" and provides sources under "supporting evidence." I'll leave it to readers to peruse the report and determine whether the evidence supports the tenet, whether what has worked for one utility will work for another or whether the various findings fall most convincingly under "strategy" or "tactics." 

"Theme 1" is "Utilities can address most customer complaints. Utilities with customer-centric engagement programs and complaint resolution processes have responded to customer concerns and complaints effectively." Under "implications," the report suggested that utilities should establish those engagement and complaint resolution practices well ahead of a program's deployment. And be prepared to address members of the "vocal minority" personally, even employing utility executives to do so.

While this theme appears to be intuitive, I'd note that appearances of intuitiveness may be deceiving.

The "supporting evidence" for this finding includes programs implemented by 17 utilities, though only a few cite actual metrics.

Here's one that seems to support the conclusion: Austin Energy used direct mail, door hangers and newspaper ads to notify customers of an AMI deployment. Installation personnel notified the billing department of customers who might experience higher bills because their analog meters were running slowly. Customers could schedule the meter swap-out if the utility's first attempt failed. A "rapid response team" immediately addressed the few complaints that arose.

The entry for Arizona Public Service, however, noted that complaints about AMI were "virtually nonexistent" for two thirds of deployment until "about 1,200 RF-related complaints were filed in Prescott, AZ." The note does not say how those complaints were handled.

Theme 2 also appears intuitive: "Staged messaging helps manage expectations." The implication: "Utilities should stage their messaging campaigns to set only those expectations that can be delivered upon in a timely manner (3-6 months) and avoid communicating a holistic vision of the smart grid with benefits that are years out."

While it's true that numerous utilities have found that limited expectations are easier to satisfy, I'm not sure anyone has reliable data yet to state definitively that "communicating a holistic vision of the smart grid with benefits that are years out" is not a sound strategy. Generational education has been suggested by Merwin Brown, director of electric grid research at the California Institute for Energy and Environment at the University of California. See Brown's "Industry Expert" piece on Intelligent Utility's website, "Generational Education For Consumers First, Then Their Direct Benefits: First the Big Picture, Then Individual Benefits."

My parsing aside, there's much to consider in the new SGCC report and I look forward to the discussion that follows its release. Many of the 10 tenets offered would seem to hold true. You can't argue with "Simplicity facilitates program enrollment" or "Attitudinal segmentation may improve program messaging." Yet the tenet that "Messages about saving money are applicable to all customers" because it has "broad appeal" and "drives enrollment" may not be the right dots to connect. Will this statement hold true for every user segment, particularly as electricity prices rise? Others have argued convincingly that giving consumers a message about "control over usage" is likelier to hold true over time.

While I'm skeptical that this report will become a widely enshrined set of best practices, I look forward to the discussion it generates. If that discussion is robust, if the report's "tenets" and "supporting evidence" withstand scrutiny, it'll have established its value.

Phil Carson
Editor-in-chief
Intelligent Utility Daily
pcarson@energycentral.com
303-228-4757