Customer Engagement Archives - Page 3 of 19

Promoting Smart Water Meters to Your Customers

Transitioning customers to smart water meters is a major step forward in modernizing utility operations. Smart meters empower customers with real-time usage data, leak detection capabilities and water conservation tools. This technology has many benefits, including more accurate billing, reduced costs and the ability to quickly address leaks before they cause expensive damage. For your utility, smart meters unlock granular usage analytics to inform strategic initiatives while driving substantial operational efficiencies and cost savings.

With so much to gain, it’s no surprise that more and more water utilities are advocating for the switch to smart meters. However, realizing this technology’s full transformative potential requires an effective marketing strategy to drive widespread customer adoption. To successfully promote smart water meters, you must employ proven tactics that resonate with your customer base.

Benefits of Smart Water Meters

By helping your utility’s customers understand the following benefits, you can encourage them to switch to smart water meters.

Accurate Billing

Smart meters employ advanced technology to deliver accurate water usage data. Unlike traditional meters, which often rely on estimated readings or periodic manual checks, this modern technology continuously monitors consumption. Real-time data ensures customers are billed for the exact amount of water they use, enhancing trust and satisfaction — no more estimated bills or surprises when the final bill arrives. In the current economic state, accurate billing will be a strong selling point for many customers.

Leak Detection

Smart meters can identify unusual or irregular patterns that may indicate a leak. Early detection allows for prompt repairs, preventing water waste and potential property damage. This proactive approach not only conserves water but also helps customers avoid unexpected repair costs and inflated bills.

Water Conservation

Smart meters provide customers with unprecedented visibility into their water usage habits. By delivering detailed consumption data and analytics, smart meters enable customers to pinpoint areas where they can reduce waste and adopt water-efficient behaviors. For example, residents might discover they use more water than necessary in their primary bathroom, leading them to install low-flow showerheads and faucets.

Remote Access and Control

Smart meters allow customers to monitor their water usage remotely and receive alerts through your utility’s online portals and mobile apps. This enhanced visibility and control supports more informed water management decisions and helps customers address problems before they become costly or disruptive. Additionally, the convenience of remote monitoring aligns with customers’ expectations for digital access and self-service options.

Communicating these primary benefits to customers in an easy-to-understand way will help encourage the adoption of smart water meters.

Driving the Adoption of Smart Water Meters

A comprehensive marketing strategy is essential to successfully introduce this technology to your customers. Communications should educate customers about the technology’s benefits and simplify the adoption process. Some key tactics to consider include:

Digital Marketing

Use targeted online ads, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to reach customers seeking details on water conservation and utility services. Highlight the benefits of smart meters and provide clear calls to action, whether it’s signing up for more information or scheduling an installation.

Content Marketing

Create valuable content, such as blog posts, videos, infographics and downloadable guides, that educates customers about smart meters and their advantages. Harris County Municipal Utility District 433, for example, shares a smart water meter video series on its website, covering account creation, leak alerts, reviewing water usage and more.

Focus on making your content engaging and easy to understand, answering common questions and concerns in a straightforward manner. Also, consider collaborating with industry experts or influencers to expand your reach, add credibility to your content and position your utility as a trusted partner in water management.

Social Media Marketing

Engage with customers on social media platforms they regularly use by sharing your informative content, success stories and smart meter program updates. Make interactive posts that encourage feedback and address common concerns. Leverage user-generated content and testimonials to build credibility and trust. With the right strategy, your social media presence can foster a sense of community around water conservation and smart meter adoption.

Email Marketing

Send personalized customer emails that emphasize smart meter benefits, deliver installation information and lay out the next steps. Include links to resources, FAQs and sign-up forms to streamline the process for customers interested in making the switch. For example, San Jose Water has an FAQ landing page that answers questions like “Will my account information be secure?” and “How will I be able to check my water use data?”. Also, regularly update your subscribers with e-newsletters that incorporate engaging content.

Community Engagement

Host informational workshops, webinars or community events to promote smart meters and answer questions. In-person engagement is a powerful way to foster personal connections with customers and create opportunities for one-on-one interactions. These events also allow you to gather valuable feedback and better understand your customers’ needs and pain points. This insight can then refine your smart water meter marketing and adoption strategies.

Incentive Programs

Offer incentives or rewards for early adopters of smart water meters. This could mean discounts on their water bill, additional rebates or an entry into a prize drawing. Incentives can motivate customers to make the switch and help build momentum. Incentive programs also generate excitement and exclusivity around the technology, which can inspire fear of missing out (FOMO) and encourage more people to participate. As early adopters spread the word about their positive experiences, it can create a snowball effect that accelerates smart meter acceptance throughout the community.

The Path Forward: Bridging the Gap

Smart water meters offer a win-win solution for both utilities and customers. By implementing a well-rounded marketing strategy that highlights the benefits of smart meters, you can effectively bridge the gap between customers, leading to increased satisfaction, operational efficiencies and water conservation.

Communicate the facts about smart water meters to your utility’s customers with an engagement solution from Questline Digital.

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Inclusive Communication Best Practices for Utilities

Inclusivity in communications is more than just a buzzword; it’s a critical component of effective customer engagement and community building. Additionally, inclusive communications are essential for fostering a sense of belonging and equity among all customers.

Utilities have a unique responsibility to ensure their messages reach and resonate with every segment of their diverse community. Fostering inclusivity is especially important for utilities serving a broad customer base that relies on electricity, gas and water for daily living.

By prioritizing inclusive communication strategies, utilities can address customer needs and preferences. This approach not only helps build trust but also promotes a supportive relationship between a utility and its customers.

Understanding the Importance of Inclusive Communications

Inclusivity in utility communications means making all customers feel seen, heard and valued, regardless of their background. Fostering inclusivity involves recognizing and addressing the diverse needs of various customer groups, including different languages, cultural practices, literacy levels and accessibility requirements.

The importance of inclusivity in communications cannot be overstated. Inclusive communication strategies build trust and enhance customer satisfaction. When customers feel understood and respected, they are more likely to engage with communications, participate in programs and provide valuable feedback. This engagement, in turn, helps utilities improve their communications and better meet the needs of their entire customer base.

Examples of inclusive versus non-inclusive communications can illustrate the impact of these practices. Inclusive communications might include:

Providing marketing messages in multiple languages
Using simple and clear language for all literacy levels
Guaranteeing accessibility for individuals with disabilities

On the other hand, non-inclusive communications may overlook these considerations, leading to misunderstanding, frustration and disengagement among customers. By learning from these examples, utilities can develop more inclusive communication strategies.

Understanding Your Diverse Community

Understanding your utility’s audience is essential to creating effective and inclusive communications. Utilities serve a wide range of individuals with varying preferences, cultural backgrounds and circumstances. To tailor communications, utilities should gather and analyze data about their customers’ demographics. This process might involve collecting information, such as age, language preferences, income levels and additional needs, that can help utilities craft messages that resonate with different segments of their target audience.

Using customer personas is one approach to representing diverse groups within a customer base. Personas are fictional characters created based on data and insights, reflecting real-life customer segments. By developing detailed personas, utilities can better understand the specific requirements of different groups and design targeted inclusive communication strategies that address their unique needs and expectations.

According to E Source, many utilities use personas for three main reasons:

Designing or improving website features
Tailoring marketing messages
Developing tailored programs and services

Incorporating this understanding makes marketing messages more relevant and accessible to all customers. For example, knowing that some customers prefer receiving information in another language or that other customers require materials in an accessible format helps utilities to make appropriate adjustments. This targeted approach not only improves the effectiveness of inclusive communications but also demonstrates a commitment to diversity, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and engagement.

How to Create Inclusive Communications

Creating inclusive communication strategies and content is a crucial aspect of fostering diversity. To make information easy to understand for all customers, use clear and concise language and avoid jargon and complex sentences. Simplifying messages and using straightforward explanations can prevent misunderstandings and help customers easily grasp important information.

Multilingual communication strategies further enhance inclusivity by addressing the needs of non-English-speaking customers. Providing translations of key materials in multiple languages ensures that language barriers don’t hinder a customer’s access to essential programs and updates. Maintaining accuracy and cultural relevance in all translations is important when translating materials. This demonstrates your utility’s respect for linguistic diversity and helps to build stronger customer connections.

Questline Digital’s Engage Global Translate is a great example of a professional translation feature that makes it easy for customers to choose and save their preferred language for all web page content and emails. With 134 languages available to choose from, engagement is more inclusive than ever before.

GIF showing how Questline Digital's Engage Global Translate feature creates inclusive communications.

Visual inclusivity also plays a significant role in enhancing inclusivity and accessibility. This might include imagery featuring a diverse representation of people.

Visual content should also adhere to accessibility guidelines, such as sufficient color contrast and descriptive alt text. This ensures information is accessible to individuals with visual impairments.

By implementing these best practices, utilities can create a more inclusive communication experience that meets the needs of all customers, regardless of their backgrounds, abilities or preferences.

Engaging with a Diverse Community Across Channels

Engaging customers through various communication channels is essential for reaching a broad audience and making information accessible to everyone. Utilities should utilize both digital and traditional methods to connect with different segments of their customer base.

Digital channels offer convenience and immediate access to information. Your utility should be using a variety of digital platforms, including:

Email
Social media
Mobile apps
Email newsletters
Webinars

Traditional methods remain imperative to reach customers who are less comfortable with digital technology or those with limited access to technology. These formats may include:

Direct mail
Community events
Call centers
Bill inserts

By meeting customers on their preferred platforms, utilities demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity. Additionally, it’s an effective way to make sure that important messages are delivered and received.

Measuring Your Utility’s Inclusive Communication Efforts

Measuring your utility’s efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in its communications is essential for evaluating the success of your strategies and driving continuous improvement. Setting clear benchmarks and key performance indicators (KPIs) helps track the impact of inclusivity initiatives and provides a basis for evaluating their success.

When looking to track your inclusive communication efforts, consider metrics such as:

Email click-through rates
Email click-to-open rates
Social media impressions
Website page visits
Customer satisfaction scores

This feedback offers valuable insights into how well a utility’s marketing message reaches and resonates with its diverse community. Regularly reviewing these metrics allows utilities to identify areas for improvement and adjust strategies accordingly.

Embracing Inclusivity for Enhanced Customer Relationships

Fostering inclusivity in utility communications is crucial for building trust among your utility’s diverse community. By understanding the varying needs of your customers, creating accessible and multilingual content and engaging through various channels, utilities can ensure their communications are effective and equitable.

Inclusive communications enhance customer satisfaction, demonstrating a utility’s commitment to serving all members of its community with respect and consideration.

Explore how Questline Digital’s Engage Global Translate feature can help your utility engage with its diverse customer base.

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Effective Marketing Strategies for Budget-Conscious Utilities

Marketers across all industries face the ongoing challenge of managing marketing initiatives with a conscious budget. For utilities, this challenge often means a lack of time and bandwidth, technology restraints, competing priorities and more.

However, utilities can still make a significant marketing impact by strategically addressing these challenges. With careful planning and innovative approaches, utilities can achieve substantial marketing results, even with a conscious budget.

Understand Your Audience

Before you can effectively market to customers, you first need to understand them. Knowing your customers’ needs, interests and how your utility can provide value to them is the first step in creating an impactful marketing strategy.

Identify what your team wants to accomplish with your marketing efforts and make sure it aligns with your customers and the utility’s overarching goals. Whether the focus is on increasing customer engagement, promoting conservation or driving program participation, clear objectives will guide your strategy and help decide where you allocate your budget.

Leverage Different Marketing Initiatives

While it may seem that marketing always requires a large budget and an expansive team of experts, the reality is that not every company has that luxury. There are many cost-efficient ways to reach customers and affordable marketing solutions that can showcase your utility’s offerings, including through:

Digital
Social Media
Email
Content
Community Engagement

Example of affordable marketing solutions for conscious-budget utilities.

Digital Marketing

There are many inexpensive digital marketing strategies for utilities with a conscious budget. To start, ensure that your website is professional and up to date to maintain relevance. Platforms like WordPress, Wix and Squarespace offer user-friendly templates compatible with mobile and desktop at an affordable cost.

Your utility can also take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) to bring people to your website and other pages. While SEO can be expensive, tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner or Yoast SEO are affordable ways to drive organic traffic. By optimizing your website and content for search engines, your utility can improve your visibility in search results, driving organic traffic to your site without the need for additional advertising costs.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is a powerful marketing tool for your utility to leverage. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and X are free and widely used, providing an effective way to reach customers with a conscious budget.

While your utility can opt for paid ads, organic social media marketing offers an affordable marketing solution while still achieving a significant impact. Remember, consistency is key to maximizing your social media presence. Regularly sharing important, timely and valuable information with customers shows you care about them and helps enhance customer engagement in the long run.

When it comes to creating design images on social media, your utility can take advantage of free tools such as Canva and Adobe Express. These tools include ready-to-use templates for various social media platforms, and both have free and paid versions.

Email Marketing

Email is one of the primary affordable marketing solutions to use to your utility’s advantage. With email marketing, your utility can reach a wide audience while on a conscious budget. Connect with customers via email and share important information, such as educational content, recommendations for programs and services and timely updates.

Your utility can use targeting capabilities to segment your audience based on specific criteria, and then tailor messages to meet their needs and interests. Additionally, email marketing platforms often come with built-in analytics, so your utility can track the performance of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

While many email marketing programs offer free versions of their services, this is something your utility will want to invest in if it’s looking to make an impact with customers. It’s important to understand which platforms will be most valuable for them and subsidize your budget accordingly.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is an impactful way to position your utility as a thought leader and trusted resource to customers. Develop valuable and informative content to educate and engage your audience. Consider various formats, such as blogs, infographics, videos and more to engage with your customers.

For utilities on a conscious budget, utilize cost-effective content creation strategies, like repurposing existing content or reusing successful materials year-over-year. These methods allow you to amplify your outreach and engagement without requiring significant additional investment.

Additionally, partner with service vendors like Questline Digital, who offer content credits, allowing your utility to set its own budget and purchase content when it would be most helpful.

Community Engagement

Community engagement offers a unique opportunity to extend your utility’s reach and impact while on a budget. Collaborating with community partners like the local government, schools or non-profit organizations can be a cost-efficient way to spread the message about your utility’s programs and services.

Your utility can also make an impact by hosting community events and webinars. These events allow customers to learn about important utility topics, available programs and services and get their questions answered. Events don’t have to cost an arm and a leg, either. Utilize the resources and partners you already have to make budget-conscious decisions that can make a big impact.

For example, Elk River Municipal Utilities (ERMU) collaborated with its community partners City of Elk River Housing and Redevelopment Authority and the Tri-County Action Program (Tri-CAP) to increase awareness and program enrollments for residents facing financial hardship.

Community engagement is a budget-conscious way to increase visibility and foster strong relationships, reinforcing your utility’s commitment to serving its residents.

Consider Cost-Effective Advertising

Advertising doesn’t always have to be expensive. Look out for resources and leverage free and low-cost advertising to further extend your marketing efforts without significant additional cost. One approach to use to your utility’s advantage is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC is highly efficient, allowing you to set spending limits and only pay when users click on your ads. Your utility can always start small with paid advertising and build upon those efforts.

Don’t forget to explore local media and sponsorships. Partnering with local newspapers, TV and radio stations, community events or sponsorship opportunities can increase your reach and impact. There are many affordable marketing solutions for utilities looking to maximize value while maintaining a conscious budget.

Measure and Optimize Your Strategies

Continuously track the performance of your utility’s marketing efforts to ensure you’re on track to meet your goals and objectives. For utilities with a conscious budget, consider using free tools such as Google Analytics to your advantage and monitor website performance and user behavior.

By analyzing key performance metrics such as website traffic, open rates, click-through rates, engagement rates and more, your utility can gain valuable insights into campaign effectiveness, further helping your utility to decide where to spend its budget.

Implement A/B testing for continuous improvement, comparing different strategies to identify the most effective approaches. Use these insights to adjust your marketing strategy and optimize effectiveness for future marketing efforts.

Maximizing Impact with Minimal Spend

Marketing with a conscious budget presents challenges, but it doesn’t mean your utility can’t achieve great results. By developing an understanding of your audience, adopting a multifaceted marketing approach and leveraging innovative tools and resources, your utility can drive impact, boost customer satisfaction and build strong customer relationships – all within a cost-effective framework.

Learn how Questline Digital’s marketing services can help your utility maximize its marketing impact even with a limited budget.

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The Power of Content Marketing for Utility Communications

Imagine Sarah, a busy homeowner, looking at her latest utility bill. The page is a maze of numbers and technical jargon, leaving her frustrated and disconnected. “There must be a better way to understand my energy use,” she sighs, tossing the bill aside.

Sarah’s experience highlights a common shortcoming in traditional brand communication. Historically, brands in all industries have relied on a one-way model. For utilities, that means bills arriving monthly, generic service updates and interactions limited to problem-solving calls. While these methods will always serve a purpose, they fail to truly connect with customers, leaving them feeling more like account numbers than valued partners in energy consumption.

Enter the power of content marketing: a game-changing approach transforming this outdated landscape. Instead of a generalized paper bill, imagine Sarah receiving an engaging email newsletter filled with personalized energy-saving tips or a link to a helpful video explaining her usage patterns.

Through informative blogs, interactive tools and customer-focused stories, content marketing conveys information while building relationships, fostering engagement and empowering customers like Sarah to take control of their energy use.

Transforming Utility Communications

Content marketing hinges on the power of storytelling and creating connections. By offering educational, engaging content that helps customers increase energy and water efficiency, save money and better comprehend complicated topics, utilities can:

Become a thought leader: Utilities position themselves as thought leaders in the industry by sharing insights and trends.
Build trust: When customers see their utility as a knowledgeable partner rather than just a service provider, it nurtures confidence and trust.
Foster brand loyalty: When engaging content fosters a sense of connection and trust, customers end up with positive brand associations.
Improve customer satisfaction: Over 70% of consumers expect a personalized experience when interacting with a company. By addressing concerns and providing helpful tips, content marketing can meet those expectations and increase satisfaction.

The power of content moves beyond transactional communication, opening a two-way channel for meaningful dialogue between utilities and their customers. This presents a pivotal opportunity for utilities to reimagine their role in customers’ lives — from mere service providers to trusted partners.

Content Formats For Effective Communication

Utilities can use various formats to fully leverage the power of content marketing and create the most effective content strategy for customers.

Blogs: Informative and engaging blogs on relevant industry topics and customer concerns serve as the backbone of many content marketing strategies. Utilities can use blogs to discuss industry trends and provide seasonal energy- or water-saving tips.

Example of leveraging the power of content marketing for utility communications with blogs

Infographics and videos: Visual content simplifies complex information and increases engagement. An infographic sharing energy myths or a video explaining how water is treated at a processing facility can make technical information accessible, exciting and memorable to a broad audience. In fact, studies show that people can remember 65% of visual content even after nearly three days, as opposed to written content, which is typically recalled at a rate of 10%.

Example of leveraging the power of content marketing for utility communications with infographics

Newsletters: Email newsletters provide utilities with a regular, personalized touchpoint to engage customers beyond billing and service updates. Monthly newsletters can deliver a variety of topics, such as smart home technology and energy efficiency home improvement, directly to customers’ inboxes.

Social media: Social media platforms are powerful tools for content distribution and fostering two-way communication. Share snippets of blogs, infographics and videos, provide essential outage updates and engage with customer questions and comments.

Example of leveraging the power of content marketing for utility communications with social media

Webinars: Host educational webinars on subjects like energy-efficient lighting solutions, developing an energy plan, using gas appliances safely and conserving water. Webinars allow for in-depth discussions and real-time customer interaction, which increases utilities’ value propositions.

Example of leveraging the power of content marketing for utility communications with webinars

Understanding your audience is crucial. Utilities must conduct research to identify customers’ preferences, pain points and information requests. This knowledge helps tailor a content strategy that resonates.

Maintaining a Powerful Content Strategy

To ensure the long-term success of a content marketing strategy, utilities should focus on several key aspects:

Consistency: Regularly publish high-quality content to maintain audience engagement and improve search engine visibility.
Relevance: Keep content aligned with customer interests and needs. Use data analytics and feedback to inform content creation.
Personalization: Tailor content to different segments, addressing their concerns and preferences.
Multichannel approach: Distribute content across various platforms to reach customers where they are most active.
Measurable goals: Set clear objectives for content marketing efforts and frequently assess performance using key metrics.

Remember, successful content marketing is an ongoing process requiring continuous evaluation and refinement. Utilities should review their strategy regularly to ensure it aligns with customer goals and needs.

Focus on these attributes to unlock the power of content marketing

Unlocking the Potential of Content Marketing

The true power of content marketing lies in its ability to educate, inform and empower customers. When executed effectively, utilities not only enhance the customer experience but also position themselves to thrive in a complex industry landscape.

By fostering a more informed and engaged customer base, content marketing doesn’t just benefit communication strategies — it can also drive innovation, support business objectives and contribute to a resilient and sustainable future.

Learn how a content marketing strategy from Questline Digital can help your utility improve the customer experience.

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Best Practices: Customer Segmentation for Water Utilities

Every customer is different, so a single approach to connecting just won’t work. Customers want to see messages that align with their needs, interests and preferences and, simply stated, don’t want to be inundated with messages that don’t. In fact, according to Campaign Monitor, 74% of consumers get frustrated when content is not aligned with their interests.

As businesses, including water utilities, compete for customers’ attention, one strategy that should not be overlooked is customer segmentation. By employing this strategy, water utilities can cut through the digital clutter and deliver relevant content that matters to each customer, in turn boosting water utility customer engagement.

What is Customer Segmentation?

Customer segmentation is a marketing strategy used to identify and connect with target customers. It involves organizing customers into groups (or segments) based on shared characteristics, then tailoring outreach efforts with relevant messages.

Relevant communications with utility customers are no longer nice-to-haves — they’re expected. That’s why segmentation is crucial for water utility customer engagement. It allows utilities to better understand customers and customize communications to meet their distinct needs. To boost water utility customer engagement, your utility can segment your customer base in several ways:

Demographics: One of the simplest, yet most effective ways, is grouping water customers based on shared demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, income and education.
Geographics: Geographic segmentation divides customers into groups based on their location, such as service territory, zip code or neighborhood. Your utility can target messages effectively to people who are in a particular location.
Psychographics: This type of segmentation is based on customer interests, values and personality traits. Your water utility can determine what motivates your customers and provide value based on those interests.
Behavioral: Group customers based on their actions, behaviors or responses. For water utilities, this could mean paying attention to what programs customers participate in or what content they engage with.
Firmographics: Water utilities have many business customers across industries, such as agriculture, healthcare, education or retail. Water utilities need to engage these customers based on their specific industry needs.

Benefits of Customer Segmentation

The benefits of customer segmentation can be substantial — marketers who use segmented campaigns can see as much as a 760% increase in revenue.

Some of the key benefits of customer segmentation for water utilities include:

Increased Efficiency and Performance: Targeting groups of customers rather than your entire list can be more efficient and cost-effective. By sending offerings to those customers who are genuinely interested, your utility can reduce wasted resources on ineffective marketing efforts.
Better understanding of customers: Segmentation provides valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing your utility to gain a better understanding of what customers care about.
Increased Customer Engagement: Tailored messages are more likely to resonate with customers, leading to higher engagement rates and increased program sign-ups.
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Customers feel uniquely communicated with and understood through targeted communications, increasing overall customer satisfaction.

Water Utility Customer Segments

77% of return on investment comes from segmented, targeted and triggered campaigns. Segmentation for water utilities can be approached in various ways, and it can be difficult to know where to start. When grouping customers into segments, consider the following:

Residential vs. Business Customer: Residential and business customers have distinct needs, goals and interests. To ensure that your messaging resonates with a particular audience, pay attention to the type of customer that you are communicating with and tailor those messages to meet their needs.

Small vs. Large Business: ”Business customer” is a broad term that can be segmented into smaller groups. Commercial and industrial business customers differ greatly from small businesses, so it’s important to communicate messages according to employee count or facility size to increase engagement.

Recognizing that not all business customers have the same needs, newsletters are a great way to segment and curate communications based on the type of business. For example, when AEP Ohio was looking to boost engagement among its business customers, the utility took advantage of segmented newsletters through Questline Digital. The newsletters targeted individual industries like healthcare, manufacturing and retail with industry-specific educational messaging. The newsletters were so successful that AEP Ohio saw an 84% increase in customer engagement for its healthcare segment.

Income-based Messaging: Tailor messages about low-income assistance programs to households that meet eligibility requirements or to those identified by behavioral factors such as high bills or late payments.

When it comes to income-based messaging, your utility should only target customers who are eligible and interested. For example, FirstEnergy was seeking ways to reach customers with financial assistance programs and utilized Questline Digital’s personalized video platform, SmartVX. The technology behind SmartVX allowed the utility to send personalized information about beneficial programs to each customer (those who were eligible for the program but hadn’t yet enrolled). The segmented campaign resulted in a 162% increase in program enrollments over four months, prompting an additional 6,800 customers to apply for financial assistance.

Example of how segmented income-based messages could boost water utility customer engagement.

Water Usage-Based Messaging: Segment customers based on their water usage patterns for a more targeted outreach. High-usage customers might benefit from water-saving programs and resources.

Program Promotions: Promote specific products and services tailored to segments based on their engagement with content, eligibility and previous interactions.

Focusing communications on segments rather than your entire customer list can yield significant results. For example, when PSEG Long Island aimed to enroll 1,200 participants in its EV rewards program, the utility began by conducting customer surveys and analyzing data to shape campaign messages and segmentation strategies. Questline Digital deployed a segmented marketing campaign spanning five months, utilizing advanced tactics such as behavioral email sends to maximize registration and enhance water utility customer engagement. PSEG Long Island surpassed its initial goal, achieving 1,300 new enrollments.

Example of how segmented program promotions could improve water utility customer engagement.

Build Stronger Customer Relationships with Segmentation

Customer segmentation is crucial for water utility customer engagement. With segmentation, your utility can drive program participation, boost conversions and increase customer satisfaction – all by delivering relevant information to target audiences. As the competition for customer attention continues to grow, implementing segmentation could be the distinguishing factor for success.

Improve water utility customer engagement and satisfaction with a segmented strategy from Questline Digital.

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