Tag: Digital Marketing

Illustration of the cost of producing an explainer video

How Much Does It Cost to Make an Explainer Video?

Some energy topics can be challenging to explain in an article or infographic and require a more in-depth, engaging format to communicate the complex information. Video content is a great way to grab your customer’s attention and make the intended message easy to understand. But as it turns out, producing an explainer video isn’t that simple.

An explainer video can cost anywhere from $2,500 to $45,000 to produce. Yes, you read that correctly. Where your video content will fall in that range depends on several aspects of the project, from the type of video to who produces it.

The Video Production Process

To better understand why an explainer video could cost that much, let’s break down the phases of the production process.

  1. Every explainer video begins with a topic and in-depth research, followed by a script and storyboard.
  2. Next comes the search for and selection of one or several actors who will record the voiceover narration or appear on screen.
  3. Production on the video itself begins, with videographers and their crew directing live-action or animators putting things in motion digitally.
  4. The shots are assembled and placed in order. Any errors are corrected, and the video takes its final shape.
  5. Finally, a sound designer will balance the spoken words, sound effects and music to finish the video.

The complex process and varied tasks require different skillsets from multiple team members. Writers, animators, illustrators, directors, videographers, sound designers and more have a hand in creating the video, while a production manager handles the communication between all parties to ensure the client’s expectations are met throughout production.

Factors That Affect the Cost of Explainer Video Production

  • Depth or complexity of the topic
  • Visual style
  • Number of sets and scenes
  • Video length
  • Project timeline

Considering the topic, what types of videos are most successful with your customers and your marketing goals can determine which choices you should make and how much your explainer video may cost.

Visual style

Considering various video styles is essential, but it’s important to remember that they differ in the types of concepts they can explain and how labor-intensive — and costly — they will be to produce.

Animated and live-action explainer videos are incredibly effective, and there are multiple types to choose from. Let’s break down a few of the most common options.

  • The most basic video style, whiteboard animation, is often the cheapest option, but it is genuinely engaging for a limited number of energy topics.
  • The next step up, 2D animation, may seem simple, but the clean and clear design is anything but basic.
  • 3D-animated videos add an extra dimension — literally — to your video content, but the additional cost may not be worth it.
  • Live-action videos are another excellent option for explainer videos, but hiring actors, reserving locations and completing additional post-production steps can increase costs.

Video length

Though it may seem that a longer video will cost more than a shorter one, that’s not always the case. The basic production work required — and the number of team members involved — will be the same whether a video is 10 seconds long or a full two minutes. A longer video typically has a lower price per second than a shorter video, but it’s important not to get carried away.

Best practices suggest that website videos shouldn’t exceed two minutes, while social media videos should be between 30 and 60 seconds long. Questline Digital Benchmarks data found that Facebook posts that fall in this range get 200% more likes, comments and shares than text-based social posts.

Remember that a five-minute-long video may technically give you more bang for your buck, but it won’t be nearly as effective as a concise explainer video a customer can get through in half the time.

Focus on Value with Expertly Crafted Explainer Videos

It can be easy to get caught up in the cost of an explainer video and forget about the purpose: creating engaging content that communicates energy topics or explains a service’s benefits to your customers. Questline Digital can help you accomplish this goal without adding more stress to your plate. Our experienced team will take care of every step of the process, from research and scriptwriting to shooting, editing and final production. Or, you can choose an existing video from our ready-to-use energy content catalog.

Explore how Questline Digital can help you create high-quality, engaging explainer videos for your customers.

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Geometric patterns

Questline Is Now Questline Digital

New name highlights the agency’s growth and its advanced communications and CX solutions

Logo for Questline Digital

Questline, an established energy marketing partner, today becomes Questline Digital. The new name reflects the company’s rapid growth and expanded services to address communication gaps across the customer engagement environment for energy utilities.

With a proven history of producing multimedia content and managing complex email and mobile communications programs, Questline Digital also applies advanced strategies for its utility clients, leveraging data and technology to optimize customer communications.

“Changing our name to Questline Digital better tells the story of how we’ve evolved in recent years to provide our clients with the solutions they need most,” said Dave Reim, President of Questline. “We have invested in digital solutions to better serve our utility clients in their mission to improve customer satisfaction and we’ve expanded our team to include customer experience and marketing experts from outside the energy industry. Alongside our creative agency’s deep history with utilities, this means we can offer our utility clients unparalleled proficiencies in technology and engagement strategies.”

The explosion in digital technology in the last decade had upended the way utilities communicate with customers at every touchpoint. Customers expect to receive relevant, personalized communications in their channel of choice, whether that means receiving power outage alerts on social media or paying their monthly bills via text message.

“Moving customer experience initiatives from concept to fulfillment requires technical expertise, data insights and the ability to quickly adapt to evolving customer expectations,” explains Reim. “Questline Digital is helping our energy utility clients connect those dots.”

About Questline Digital

Questline Digital is a marketing and technology agency that builds engaging experiences throughout the utility customer journey, boosting program participation and overall satisfaction.

As a full-service partner, Questline Digital’s team of strategists, energy experts and developers work with clients to build cohesive digital experiences that educate, engage and inspire action among diverse customer segments. Mixing multimedia content, integrated technology and data-driven communication strategies, Questline Digital solves industry challenges and drives measurable results for energy providers across the U.S.

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Illustration of data analytics benchmarks for 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks

Webinar: 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report

Questline Digital’s annual Energy Utility Benchmarks Report provides data and insights into customer engagement for energy providers across the country. In our recent webinar, “2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report: Data to Drive Your Utility Forward,” Brian Lindamood, VP of Marketing & Content Strategy at Questline Digital, and Nina Cummins, Account Director at Questline Digital, offered their expert analysis and key takeaways from this year’s report and the state of today’s energy consumer.

Drawing from the Data

The report includes data compiled from 367 million email messages sent on behalf of energy utilities in 2021. It invites the reader to draw their own conclusion from the data, inspecting what metrics matter most and where their utility stands among others in the industry.

The report’s key finding was that energy utilities successfully maintained the increased levels of customer engagement that were first seen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I suspected that I would be sitting here, a year later, explaining that engagement went down in 2021 because of the spike in 2020,” Lindamood said. “But it didn’t. Engagement was flat in 2021, but it was flat at record-high levels. That increase in digital engagement was not a blip, it’s a new and lasting expectation that customers have.”

Overall, municipal utilities achieved the highest open rate increase and co-ops gained the highest click rates of any utility type.

Example statistics from 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks

Update on Apple Privacy Changes

Due to Apple privacy changes, the 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report may be the last annual report to classify open rate as a major indicator of engagement.

Lindamood explained that the Apple privacy policy implemented in the latter half of 2021 had slight impacts on engagement at the end of the year, including:

  • 11% increase in open rates since September 2021
  • 34% of opens flagged as “machine read”

Lindamood expects the Apple privacy changes to make a larger impact in 2022. In the meantime, he suggests that the industry move toward analyzing other key metrics instead, including click click-through rates and conversion rates, for a more effective way of evaluating engagement.

“The bottom line is we can’t rely on open rates anymore. Period,” Lindamood said. “Much more important are click-through rates and conversion rates — the actions customers take after opening a message.”

Metric Breakdowns Per Category

The 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report addresses key data points for energy utilities to analyze and compare their own performance to others in the industry. Questline Digital’s speakers walked through some main highlights of the report, including:

  • Welcome Series
  • Program Promotions
  • Business Customer Engagement

Welcome Series

Welcome Series saw an extraordinary jump in open rates, with an overall 16% increase. This continues to prove that customers want and expect a warm welcome from their utility upon starting service. It’s imperative utilities make a good first impression and provide customers with need-to-know information like how to sign up for My Account, paperless billing and more.

Subject lines in particular play a large role in determining whether customers engage with a Welcome Series. Many of the top performing subject lines include the utility name, which consistently draws engagement from its readers.

“What we have seen in the past is that customers who engage with a Welcome Series tend to be a lot more active with follow-up communications,” Cummins said. “So really grabbing that customer when they first sign up for service is a way to get them in your fold.”

Program Promotions

Rebate promotions had a sharp increase in engagement last year. Between 2020 and 2021 there was a 188% increase in CTOR for appliance rebate promotions.

Cummins explained that this increase is due to a desire for customers to develop more energy efficient homes. In fact, research finds that 56% of consumers find it “very important” to have an energy efficient home, but only 9% think their home is energy efficient.

“With a rise in home improvement projects during the pandemic, consumers were turning to their utility for advice and guidance to replace old appliances and the appliance rebate recycling programs helped to lead them there,” said Cummins.

Example statistics from 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks

Business Customer Engagement  

The 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report revealed a split in business customer engagement: Key Account engagement decreased while Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) engagement increased.

  • 17.7% decrease in open rate for Key Accounts
  • 10.8% increase in open rate for SMB

As all business customers faced new challenges during the pandemic — with many large businesses still determining return-to-office plans — SMB customers more often turned to their energy provider for support and guidance.

“This is at least in part due to the different ways businesses have responded to the pandemic,” Lindamood said. “Small business customers needed a lot of assistance, especially early on in the pandemic. And in addition to the government support programs that were available, they may have been reaching out to their utility for payment programs, efficiency advice or other ways to save. Large businesses didn’t qualify for as much of the federal aid that was available, and yet many are still dealing with the effects of the pandemic.”

Lindamood suggests using segmentation to communicate with Key Accounts customers by industry type. This ensures these time-strapped customers receive targeted, relevant information, which can make a large impact on engagement and performance metrics.

Example statistic from 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks

Data to Drive Your Utility Forward

Questline Digital’s 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report provides a guide for measuring and comparing digital engagement performance across the industry. The data can assist your utility in understanding how to build stronger connections with customers and evaluate the success of your engagement strategy.

Learn more about Questline Digital’s 2022 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report.

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Illustration of behavioral email examples in utility marketing

Why You Should Be Sending Behavioral Emails + Examples

Looking to improve digital customer engagement? Behavioral emails could be your answer.

With 75% of emails going unopened on average, your energy utility must work to send customers the emails they want to read. Behavioral sends give customers what they want when they want it.

What Is a Behavioral Email?

Behavioral emails are automated or planned email sends that are triggered by actions taken or not taken by a customer. Instead of interruption or push marketing where brands put messages in front of consumers who may or may not be interested, behavioral targeting builds on pre-determined actions and demonstrated customer interests. This gives customers exactly what they want or need.

Is Behavioral Marketing the Same as Segmentation?

Segmentation refers to building marketing campaigns for specific audiences so you can speak to their unique needs and interests. Segmentation is often done with demographic data or personas. Not all segmentation efforts are classified as behavioral, but all behavioral emails can be considered segmented. Behavioral segmentation is the sorting of people into groups based on actions they take or don’t take.

Why Should You Use Behavioral Emails?

Targeted, personalized messages have the power to transform your energy utility into a trusted partner and resource. Setting up behavior-based email campaigns can help you reach customers when they are ready to engage with you or need your help most.

Data from MailChimp shows that on average, segmented campaigns result in 23% higher open rates and 49% higher click-through rates than unsegmented campaigns.

Questline Digital’s Benchmarks data supports MailChimp’s findings, showing that when energy utilities segment eNewsletters for small businesses they see a vast improvement in customer engagement. Year over year, utilities saw:

  • 11.2% more opens
  • 45.8% improvement in click-to-open rates (CTOR)
  • 62.1% improvement in click-through rates (CTR)

As explained above, behavioral emails take segmentation even further, speaking not only to specific needs and interests, but providing that information exactly when customers need it. Essentially, the right message at the right time.

This is why behavioral emails perform better than promotional marketing emails. According to the Direct Marketing Association, over 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered emails.

Triggers for Behavioral Emails

Actions taken within marketing campaigns are the best triggers for behavioral emails. While actions like signing up for service or making a purchase can trigger automated email sends that are by definition considered behavioral, the largest impact can be made when sending follow-up emails based on clicks or opens.

Triggers for behavioral sends:

  • Open, no click
  • Click but didn’t convert
  • Didn’t open

You can set up automated workflows that follow if/then logic based on the listed actions above. Or if you’re unable to build sophisticated systems, use behavioral lists. Simply remove those contacts that don’t fit the chosen criteria and send targeted follow-up communications.

7 Behavioral Email Examples for Energy Utilities

Energy utilities can take advantage of triggered emails in a variety of ways. Here are seven behavioral email examples to help inspire your customer communications:

1. Welcome series

The most common type of behavioral email is the onboarding message. The action of signing up for service naturally prompts the need for communication. A series of welcome emails establishes a flow of information, helping customers make the most of their new account right away. This can be automated to launch immediately when people sign up for service or be sent every week to new contacts, depending on your email capabilities.

2. Program enrollment

When promoting program or paperless billing enrollment, you can use behavioral emails to further prompt customers who don’t act. If a customer clicks into your paperless billing email but doesn’t enroll, you can send a behavioral email with a different subject line, CTA or hero image. They showed interest but may need different information to take action.

Similarly, if your campaign features a time-sensitive sweepstakes or promotion, a behavioral follow-up with “don’t miss out” or “limited time only” messaging can motivate customers who previously haven’t responded to finally act. 

3. Utility marketplace

Many energy utilities are now utilizing abandoned cart emails that are popular in the retail industry. These emails are automatically triggered when a customer leaves an energy utility’s marketplace without completing a purchase. Abandoned cart emails can tout the benefits of the product not yet purchased or include a modest coupon code to further entice customers to complete their purchase.

Another idea is sending a product recommendation email after a customer makes a purchase to encourage them to shop again. When you know what customers have already purchased, you can predict what they will buy or need next and make helpful recommendations. This is a tactic that Amazon uses, with 35% of its sales directly attributed to making product suggestions based on past behaviors.

Your energy utility can also benefit from following up with useful tips on how to make the most of a recent purchase. A triggered content email that explains how to use a smart thermostat after one is purchased from your marketplace can go a long way in helping customers enjoy their new product.

4. Activity reports

You likely already have this type of behavioral email in place. Each month you may send customers payment confirmation emails or energy usage summary reports. Both are considered behavior sends because they are triggered by actions taken by the customer.

5. Web views

With proper tracking and systems in place, you can see when customers view specific pages or products on your website. If you find that a customer is viewing multiple pieces of content related to renewable energy, you can build an automated email or email series that is triggered to send after a specific number of views. This allows you to automatically send them communications that answer common questions about the topics they are researching.

6. Engagement

Take action on customers who don’t regularly open emails. For example, if a customer doesn’t open their eNewsletter for six months, you can set up an automated re-engagement campaign to encourage them to update their email preferences and subscriptions.

7. Service

When you complete a customer service call, send an automated email that asks for customer feedback. Get feedback in real-time when memories are fresh so you can take appropriate action and keep customers happy. Not to mention, capture the positive service wins of your employees.

7 More Behavioral Email Examples

Triggered emails are used by marketers in all industries, but retailers and ecommerce brands tend to lead the pack. Check out the behavioral email examples below.

1. Abercrombie & Fitch

After a customer viewed loungewear on the Abercrombie & Fitch site, but took no action, the retailer sent a behavioral follow-up that encouraged the shopper to “take another peak.”

Example of behavioral email sent by Abercrombie

2. Section 119

Or this example from Section 119. The retailer followed up on a web visit with the simple question, “Where’d you go?” and offered up related products to encourage more sales, adding a sense of urgency around merchandise availability.

Example of behavioral email sent by Sec 119

3. Utility customer satisfaction survey

Getting customer feedback is essential. But when sending J.D. Power survey requests, it’s unrealistic to expect one email to garner maximum participation. To increase the likelihood of getting feedback Questline Digital helped one of our clients to set up reminder emails to send to customers who didn’t open or click previous messages.

Behavioral email example of utility sending customer satisfaction survey

4. Questline Digital

Here is a behavioral email example that Questline Digital uses in our own email marketing efforts. When a recipient opens an email about our upcoming webinar but doesn’t register, we trigger another email to send a few days later, encouraging them to finish signing up.

Behavioral email example of Questline webinar promotion

5. Homage

Post-purchase follow-up is a common use for triggered emails. Check this behavioral email example from Homage. After a customer purchased a gift card, they emailed to see how the experience went. They also made suggestions for future purchases and invited the customer to join them on social media.

Example of behavioral email from Homage clothing retailer

6. Amazon

Here’s an incredibly simple behavioral email example from Amazon. Users with a wedding registry receive a promo code one week after their wedding date. Fully automated, this email prompts additional sales at the exact moment the newly married couple has extra cash in hand from wedding gifts.

Example of behavioral email from Amazon wedding registry

7. Grist

Welcome emails classify as behavioral sends. Post signing up for an eNewsletter with Grist, subscribers receive the following email with information on what to expect next and how to update their preferences.

Behavioral email example from Grist magazine

Getting Started with Behavioral Emails

Could your energy utility’s program promotions benefit from the addition of behavioral emails? If you’re not doing them already, the answer is yes. Building automated email sends and/or setting up manual workflows based on customer actions is one of the best ways to boost email engagement and program participation.

Learn how Questline Digital can elevate your digital customer relationships with behavioral email marketing.

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Energy Spotlight interview with Natasha Contreras

Energy Spotlight: Natasha Contreras

Natasha Contreras is the epitome of a jack of all trades, having held roles on multiple teams at San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) including IT, project management and marketing. Currently EV Customer Engagement Manager for the utility, Contreras now focuses her efforts on educating the community on going electric.

Contreras joined SDG&E straight out of college. What began as an interim position as a contractor became a full-time opportunity as Contreras volunteered for new initiatives and moved her way up the company. She worked in project management for her first five years before moving into her marketing role to promote clean transportation.

Headshot photo of Natasha Contreras for Energy Spotlight interview

“Utilities are a little bit slower on the uptake picking up some of the systems because everything that we do is so compliance-focused, we’re highly regulated and there are so many privacy concerns,” Contreras explains. “So, it takes a little longer for us to catch up to some of those types of technology, but I think that’s helped me to learn holistically how the utility industry functions.”

When she joined the clean transportation team, the group consisted of 12 people. Now, she says, the evolution has been incredible, growing to over 30 people with Contreras managing a team of 12.

It’s been four years since Contreras started with the team. She says their priorities are two-fold:

  1. Educate customers of the benefits of electric vehicles, and
  2. Educate customers on the utility’s role as a facilitator and advisor.

Contreras has been accomplishing this through their LOVELECTRIC campaign, which is designed to break myths about EVs through educational materials for customers, dealerships and charging providers.

Contreras’ team is also focused on ensuring equitable opportunities for their customers. They are dedicated to sharing resources about funding and grants and ensuring their materials are easy to understand for all customers, including adding multilingual resources to accommodate the large Spanish-speaking population in San Diego. Contreras herself was born in Russia and moved to the United States at 10 years old. Russian is her first language, so she uses that as a guide to make sure the materials they create are universally understood.

In addition, Contreras’ work includes outreach both in-person and virtually to connect with customers about EVs. Before the pandemic, they hosted 75 events a year to allow people to test drive EVs and ask questions. As the pandemic took its toll, those events dropped to zero. Instead of pushing people to buy EVs, Contreras and her team shifted their messaging to concentrate on customers who were currently driving an EV or planned to buy one.

Although it wasn’t her first choice for work, Contreras has grown to love working in the utility industry. “I by chance ended up in the clean transportation group. I didn’t come into this group with a passion for environmental justice and getting more EVs in the world,” she says. “But now, to me, I have the best job in the world. I get to be creative every day and work with so many interesting dealers and groups of people, getting to do all these fun things to educate the community about EVs. My passion is being creative and that’s exactly what I get to do here.”

Outside of work, Contreras enjoys traveling and staying active, hiking trails or visiting the beach with her two Yorkies, Chloe and Celine.

Questline Digital spoke with Contreras to get her thoughts on innovative ways to connect with customers, changes in the utility industry and thought-provoking marketing campaigns.

How did you get started in the energy utility industry?

I graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in Marketing and Communications during the recession, in 2009. My dreams of going into advertising and living out my full Mad Men life were quickly brought to reality with the lack of work availability.

I started my role at San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) thinking it was an interim position — something to hold me over while the market picked back up and the marketing agencies started hiring again. I distinctly remember onboarding in my first role at the company, as a Business Systems Analyst, and talking to my coworkers that referred to themselves as “lifers.” I thought to myself, there’s no way that’s going to be me — I couldn’t fathom staying at the same company for any longer than just a few years.

Well, since then, the economy picked up, and then crashed again (a few times, at that). I had plenty of opportunities to move on to other companies, but I chose to pave my own pathway at SDG&E, volunteering for different projects and initiatives. Twelve years later, I am still here, and I can truly say, I love what I do.

What has changed the most about your job working in the utility industry over the course of your career?

I feel like a lot has changed since I started working at the utility over a decade ago. Perhaps it was because I was inexperienced and green, but the thought of working for a gas and electric company back then didn’t seem very exciting. It is fascinating to think back over the last 10 years or so and observe the progress that has been made. While the priority for the company remains to be clean, safe and reliable, the concept of innovation and technology has certainly dominated my sphere as time went on.

One of the things I love most about working for a company of this size is that there are so many opportunities to broaden your skill sets in various areas. While my passion has always revolved around the creative space, I found ways to incorporate those talents into my day-to-day work.

Through the years, I transitioned between the IT space, to project management, to business process to change management, and finally landed where I am today — the clean transportation space, where I thrive from coming up with creative ideas on how to engage with our customers and generate awareness about the benefits of driving electric.

What excites you the most about the energy utility space?

The endless opportunities! I work for a group that is truly on the brink of the next frontier. We are changing the way people travel! I couldn’t think of anything more exciting.

Change is frightening and it’s happening quickly. I lead a team of passionate individuals, tasked with the vision to reimagine transportation. There are not enough hours in the day to keep up with the new technologies that are coming to the market. We have made it our goal to be our customers’ trusted advisor. To take the overwhelming amount of information about the available clean transportation options and condense them down to something that is easily digestible.

I also love the opportunities to network with so many other companies and individuals in this industry. Whether it’s checking out the newest EV models that are coming to the market or learning about new innovative charging methods that can dispatch excess energy back to the grid, I feel like I learn something new every single day, and I love knowing that I’m not going to get bored at work any time soon.

What campaign or initiative are you most proud of?

I can honestly say that our current LOVELECTRIC campaign is what I’m most proud of so far in my career. It’s relatable, empathetic and funny. We are in the business of myth-busting. Driving electric — what’s not to love? No more oil changes. No more worrying about rising gas prices. Smooth rides and sounds of silence. How many more reasons do you need?

We’re teaching our customers that they can help save the environment and experience the thrill of clean living when they drive an electric vehicle. Falling in love has never been easier. It’s time to LOVELECTRIC.

What’s a marketing campaign you wish you’d thought of (inside or outside the energy industry)?

There are so many good ones! I love watching the Super Bowl every year solely for the commercials. I tend to lean toward humor, and to me, GEICO always knocks it out of the park and I find myself laughing out loud. On the same token, this Orbit Gum commercial was hilarious and definitely got my attention.

Probably the most relevant example I can think of was the Audi e-tron campaign from 2018. They were one of the first OEMs to make a strong push for EVs in the mass media and I definitely found myself pulling ideas for our own campaign from their “myth-busting” strategy.

What is the hardest part of working in the energy industry today?

The energy industry has definitely evolved over the last decade and turned into an innovative technology space. It’s exciting to see what the Elon Musks of the world are coming up with to push the needle.

That said, one of the hardest parts of working in this industry today is keeping the balance between the possibilities of the future and the reliability of the day-to-day operations. The impacts of the pandemic have taken a toll on almost every industry over the last two years, and the energy industry is no exception. We have to stay mindful in our messaging — continue to innovate while ensuring that all our customers have equitable access to our offerings.

Finish this sentence: If I weren’t working in the utility industry, I would be…

Doing my same job anywhere. While I mentioned above that I have truly come to love working for the utility, at my core, my passion is being creative. And I feel like I can transfer this skill set to any industry. Marketing, communications and project management are universal skills — you just have to find something that excites you!

How do you anticipate the world of energy evolving in the coming years?

There are so many exciting things on the horizon! New technologies are paving the way to a more efficient, sustainable future. I’m looking forward to the next few decades — to a time when pumping gas will be the anomaly rather than driving electric, and to cool concepts like autonomous electric vehicles that will be charged wirelessly.

I love the feasibility of connecting and building partnerships with contacts across the country, and at this point, the whole world. The virtual environment has given everyone access to network with whoever we want, and I anticipate that we are going to continue finding efficiencies and developing the industry quicker.

What advice would you give to those entering the utility space?

My advice is to have an open mind. The possibilities are endless. I don’t think I would have considered the utility to be an innovative technology company back when I was first starting. But that has changed, and my eyes have been opened to think big and constantly pitch new ideas, and I encourage everyone to do the same. Just because something has been done one way forever, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.

Participation in Questline Digital’s Energy Spotlight series does not indicate an endorsement from utility partners.