Spring is quickly approaching — and that means warmer temperatures, flowers blooming and longer days. This time of year is also an opportunity for your energy utility to jumpstart program promotions and increase customer engagement.
Read on to learn about the top five programs and services to share with your customers to prepare them for the upcoming season and beyond.
1. Help with the honey-do list
For homeowners, spring is all about home improvements, spring cleaning and checking projects off their honey-do list. Your energy utility can help make these DIY projects easier by sharing educational content for home improvements, such as sealing windows and doors, replacing a furnace filter or insulating hot water pipes.
For example, share an entertaining video or eye-catching infographic detailing the steps to accomplish a specific home project. Questline Digital’s popular video series “You Can” is a great example of teaching customers how to take on easy DIY projects with the guidance of a friendly host like television personality Jeff Wilson.
A big motivator for starting home improvement projects is achieving greater savings. That’s why it behooves energy utilities to promote energy efficiency products available in your marketplace, such as smart thermostats, LED lighting and ENERGY STAR appliances. If your energy utility offers home energy assessments, encourage customers to analyze their energy usage before summer’s rising temperatures bring higher energy bills.
2. Step up before storm season
For many parts of the country, spring is a welcome relief from the frigid winter weather. However, this season also means an increased risk of severe storms. Prepare your customers before storms strike by promoting your energy utility’s outage email or text alerts. This is an opportunity for your customers to be proactive during storm season, ensuring they aren’t left in the dark when an outage occurs.
Your energy utility also benefits from sharing quick, easy ways to report an outage, such as through MyAccount or your utility’s mobile app. In these communications, be sure to share valuable resources like outage maps, storm preparedness tips and where to find restoration updates. Outages are a frustrating experience for everyone, but proactive outage communications can make a big impact on customer satisfaction scores.
3. Encourage EV adoption
Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer, is known as one of the best times to buy a new car. In the coming months, your customers will probably begin their research on electric vehicles before making a purchase during this deal-filled weekend. Help their research process by sharing available electric vehicle or EV charger rebates. The extra savings might be enough to encourage them to make the switch.
Similarly, reach out to business customers with rebates on electric warehouse equipment or electric vehicles for their fleets. By purchasing electric equipment now, businesses can help offset the higher energy demand in the summer.
4. Say “hello” to new customers
Spring is the start of moving season, which runs into the summer months. This is an opportunity for your energy utility to welcome new customers, as well as reintroduce your programs and services to existing customers moving within your service area.
A Welcome Series is a best-practice solution to connect with these customers at the start of service when they are most engaged. Our most recent Benchmarks data shows that more than half of all Welcome Series emails are opened, the start of a digital relationship that continues with higher email engagement throughout the customer’s journey with your utility.
Through a series of automated emails sent over a regular cadence, your energy utility can share important information like MyAccount and billing options, energy efficiency programs, outage resources and community initiatives.
We recommend segmenting your Welcome Series by new and moving customers to personalize this content to each audience. Additionally, consider personalizing your energy efficiency-focused message to homeowners and renters by sharing relevant products and programs. For example, renters are more interested in easy fixes like smart power strips and water-saving showerheads, while homeowners would be open to more expensive upgrades like energy efficient appliances and whole-house energy assessments.
5. Offer resources to reduce monthly bills
Rising temperatures means higher electric bills for your customers. Before the dog days of summer, help your customers take control of their energy use. Promote your high bill resources, energy usage tracking resources (such as through MyAccount or your energy utility’s mobile app) and smart meter information. Customers are often not aware of the steps they can take to improve energy savings and prepare for peak demand months.
In addition to high bill promotions, educate customers about the various payment assistance programs available if they experience unexpected financial hardship. Summer means rising energy bills, so you want to prepare them ahead of high bill season.
Program promotions are blooming this spring
Your customers are looking forward to spring — and your energy utility should be too. This season is an opportunity to connect with customers, whether to help with their honey-do lists or prepare them for severe storms and outages. Just like the flowering trees this season, your customer engagement can bloom with the right program promotions this spring.