Webinars Archives - Page 5 of 7

Webinar: How to Build Engagement with New Customers

As the old adage goes, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.” This is especially true of the first interactions between energy utilities and engagement with their new customers.

In Questline Digital’s Plugged In webinar, “How to Build Lasting Engagement with New Customers,” Questline Digital’s Josh Hanna and Sigma Computing’s Danny Codella provide insights on the value of implementing a Welcome Series to create a positive first impression and how this best-practice solution can transform digital customer relationships.

Make a great first impression with utility customers

A welcome email is the first impression your energy utility has with a customer after they sign up for service. According to Hanna, this is a great opportunity to acknowledge customers and educate them about your energy utility’s offerings. With digital engagement expectations already set by retail brands and other industries, your customers expect to hear from their energy utility. In fact, 74% of email subscribers expect to receive a welcome email from a company.

“Imagine yourself shopping at an online retailer where you get 20% off your next purchase if you join a loyalty program or submit your email address,” Hanna says. “As a customer, you already know that within minutes you’ll receive a thank-you email with the promo code. It’s a norm, not an anomaly, that customers want to hear from you.”

For energy utilities, a Welcome Series of three to five automated emails is a best-practice solution that creates multiple touchpoints and engages customers with valuable information. This is an opportunity for energy utilities to continue the dialogue with new or moving customers, become a proactive advisor and answer questions your customers don’t even know they have yet.

Each Welcome Series email should touch on a different topic:

Welcome message
Billing and payments
Outage resources
Community involvement
Safety or energy savings

The top-performing Welcome Series topics are billing and payments. Your customers are looking for information on when they can expect their first bill, how to understand their bill and information on available payment options. This message is also an ideal time to encourage customers to sign up for paperless billing.

In the energy savings message, Hanna recommends incentivizing customers to shop at your energy utility’s marketplace. In a study of energy utility customers, 56% didn’t know their energy utility offered a marketplace to purchase energy-efficient products. Keep in mind, the most important information should be included in the beginning and middle of the series.

Key benefits of Welcome Series:

Increases credibility of your energy utility
Potential for increasing program conversions (i.e. paperless billing and outage text alerts)
Incentivizes customers to shop at your energy marketplace
Provides background on your energy utility
Introduces customers to other programs/services offered by your energy utility

Exceed expectations with new customers

According to Hanna, 8 out of 10 customers expect to receive welcome emails after they sign up for a mailing list, such as joining a loyalty program. This expectation is happening outside the energy utility industry and is important for energy utility marketers to be aware of. In fact, 51% of all Welcome Series messages are opened and achieve high customer engagement (21.9% CTOR), according to Questline Digital performance metrics.

Codella shares that welcome messages will typically have the highest open and click-through rates of any communication you send. In fact, welcome messages have five times the number of click-throughs as standard marketing emails. “A welcome email series is absolutely critical for establishing customer relationships,” Codella says. “It’s a huge opportunity — the momentum is high and your brand is top-of-mind to customers.”

Welcome Series also has a profound impact on customer engagement with future marketing communications sent by your energy utility. Questline Digital’s performance data finds that Welcome Series graduates — customers who engaged with at least one Welcome Series email — engage with future utility emails at a 30% higher rate.

Codella adds that to be successful in building engagement with new customers, there are six components that your welcome emails should have.

Six components of an effective Welcome Series:

Have a clear sender name and email address, subject line and preheader text
Make the email personalized
Say thank you
Set expectations
Give rewards
Tell customers what you want them to do next

Beyond educating customers about your energy utility’s resources, each Welcome Series message should communicate next steps for customers. For example, do you want your customers to enroll in a program, download an app or click on a link to learn more information? A clear call-to-action is essential to increase program conversions.

Game plan for personalization

According to Codella and Hanna, segmentation and personalization are key to a successful Welcome Series. Welcome emails with personalization have six times higher transaction rates. However, before personalizing your messages, you need to understand who your customers are.

For example, are they residential or business customers? Renters or homeowners? Are they new customers or existing customers moving within your service area? Your energy utility can personalize emails by a customer’s geography, job title, purchase behavior, interests, anniversaries and more. Personalization is also beneficial in subject lines, helping to increase open rates by 26%.

“In the old days, you put a customer’s name on their email and that was considered personalization,” Hanna says. “Today, it’s about understanding the individual and who they are. From a customer experience standpoint, what information do they want or need to know?”

An investment in long-term engagement with new customers

To emphasize the importance of welcome emails, Codella notes that it takes 12 positive impressions to make up for one bad impression. First impressions are essential, as 51% of customers will never do business with a company again after a bad experience.

“A well-planned Welcome Series builds trust, gives customers valuable information, helps with upselling and sets the tone of your energy utility’s customer relationships,” Codella says. “First impressions are hard to shake — that’s why an investment in a Welcome Series is a must for energy utilities.”

Welcome new customers to your energy utility with an automated Welcome Series campaign from Questline Digital.

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Webinar: Smart Home Technology and Your Customers

Smart home technology is on the rise. In the last two years the number of households with smart speakers has grown by 135%. Between those, robot vacuums, video doorbells and more, there is no shortage of technology claiming to make our lives easier. Why is this important to know? Well, your energy utility customers are purchasing smart home devices and, in doing so, developing relationships with other technology companies rather than your energy utility.

In Questline Digital’s Plugged In webinar, “Smart Home Technology and Your Customers,” expert speakers from Questline Digital, GreenMarbles and ibex navigated the smart home landscape by sharing insights into why customers are interested in these gadgets and how your energy utility can guide them on their purchasing journey.

Customer relationships matter in smart home technology adoption

Alexandra Greenberg, Content Strategist for Questline Digital, explained how the growth of smart home technology presents numerous relationship-building opportunities for your energy utility. More than 60 million Americans now own at least one smart home device. As the technology continues to advance, it is all the more reason for your energy utility to create a trustworthy relationship with customers to be part of these buying experiences.

According to Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) research, 42% of consumers said the involvement or endorsement of their utility would influence their adoption of new technologies. Without a relationship between your energy utility and its customers, they will look elsewhere for resources and information. For example, Google Nest provides monthly eNewsletters that include efficiency and safety advice and personalized reports on customers’ energy usage. Greenberg said, “You want your customers to look to you for this information, not anyone else.”

Content marketing allows your energy utility to share this information and build customer relationships with articles, infographics, videos and more. For energy utility customers, these solutions are valuable when making purchasing decisions. Content marketing can also help drive customers to your energy utility’s marketplaces. What’s important, Greenberg points out, is to ensure the content you share doesn’t sell to customers, but educates them with valuable information and answers their questions.

How utilities can communicate smarter around energy technology

Although smart home technology may be on the rise, many customers still don’t know exactly what smart home devices are. David Cathey, SVP of the Utility Division for GreenMarbles, explained that “A smart device is a device that has purpose-drive communication capabilities.” He noted that many people have smart devices, but do not have smart homes. This is because the devices they own aren’t communicating with each other. Energy utilities need to be able to assist customers in purchasing devices that speak to each other and create packages for them that meet their customers’ needs.

Traditionally, energy utilities stop at the meter when helping customers, Cathey said, but this is changing with the future of smart tech. “Moving beyond the meter with experiences around energy, automation, security and wellness is necessary to become a partner to customers and make their lives easier,” he said.

Energy utilities need to not only market smart tech devices but fulfill the customer service gaps that exist within the industry. Customers want to know that someone is there to help answer their questions or help them install their smart tech devices. In doing so, customers will trust their energy utility and will return for future buying experiences.

Cathey noted that “Security is the primary purchase motivator for smart home technology.” Once customers enter the market through this motivation, they are likely to continue adding devices to their home and will look to your energy utility for resources.

Age demographics are also very important when it comes to smart home technology. Often, it is thought that the younger generations are most interested in the technology, but those aged 65 and older are very interested as well. Smart home technology enables these customers to stay safe, secure and save money. As these individuals age and reach the point where they may consider moving into senior housing, smart technology could help them reconsider. Cathey said that customers who invest in smart home technology stay in their homes nearly two years longer than those who don’t. In other words, they also stay on as your energy utility’s customer for longer.

Bringing smart tech home with effective marketplace sales

Mark Wilkinson, SVP of Products for ibex, joined the conversation to discuss the impact of energy utility marketplaces. “It’s no longer a question of whether or not customers have embraced smart home technology or will they buy it; they are buying it,” he said. “Now the question is, how can we help our consumers actually get the most value out of this technology? The time has come for utilities to embrace marketplaces.”

Wilkinson noted that in today’s digital age, there is no reason not to have a marketplace. He pointed to a Chartwell study that found “57% of customers use or have interest in marketplaces from their utilities.” Those numbers further increase when it comes to the Millennial or Gen Z populations, digitally inclined customers who are already likely to buy more products and services online. Partly due to the coronavirus pandemic, Wilkinson said now “everyone is an ecommerce shopper” and energy utilities need to embrace this.

When it comes to energy utility marketplaces, design matters. When competing with the likes of Amazon, Walmart or Best Buy, energy utilities need to present their marketplaces as the go-to resource for customers looking to purchase smart home tech. Wilkinson shared the key elements to think through when it comes to designing a marketplace including making them:

Modern
Easy
Mobile
Visual
Multi-channel

When considering what items to include on the marketplace, it’s important to have the right-sized catalog. Customers are typically interested in a few key areas when looking for smart tech products to buy:

Safety
Security
Convenience
Comfort
Entertainment

A marketplace site should be a destination that customers want to come back to. Utilities can do this by offering comparison lists, educational libraries or video tutorials for installing smart home devices. In addition, personalize their experience on the marketplace by understanding where they live, keeping track of their purchases and how they click-through the site. Customers aren’t demanding personalization, but they are expecting it, Wilkinson said.

Smart technology is coming home for energy utility customers

Smart home technology is changing the way customers interact with their energy utility. Keeping up with these changes and offering the advice and solutions your customers need can create lasting relationships. Amazon and Google aren’t going anywhere, but now is the time for energy utilities to step up in the space and become the go-to resource for customers when it comes to smart home technology.

Educate your customers about smart home technology with a content marketing strategy from Questline Digital.

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Webinar: Diversity and Inclusion Strategies for Energy Utilities

Concerns about racial justice, diversity and inclusion have taken on renewed importance this year with a national dialogue that was long overdue. For energy utilities this issue is critical, not just as large employers, but as institutions in your communities and in the way you serve and represent your customers.

In Questline Digital’s Plugged In webinar, “Diversity & Inclusion: Strategies for Energy Utilities,” industry experts from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative, Heidrick & Struggles and Duquesne Light Company shared their insights and tactics for creating a more inclusive energy utility workplace and community.

Improving workplace diversity and inclusion at energy utilities

Patty Durand, president and CEO of SECC, started the webinar by discussing ways that energy utilities and clean tech companies can increase diversity within their workforces. She emphasized that the energy efficiency sector is the largest employer in the clean energy economy. However, not everyone is benefiting from this economic powerhouse.

For example, Hispanic, Black and women employees represent a smaller share of the energy efficiency workforce than the national workforce. That’s why it’s vital to expand energy efficiency job opportunities to low-income or marginalized communities.

Durand shared the results of a recent ACEEE report highlighting exemplary programs operated by utilities, state agencies and community-based organizations to increase diversity and inclusion. To engage underrepresented workers, ACEEE identified the following strategies:

Engage people from underrepresented groups with training and internship programs. To increase the pipeline of workers from underrepresented groups, stakeholders can offer training programs to contracting firms.
Focus on supplier diversity and inclusive procurement. Utilities can choose to work with minority, women, disabled and veteran-owned businesses to design, administer and implement their programs.

How diversity and inclusion can transform energy utilities

The world is changing fast, resulting in fundamental differences in today’s global markets and talent pools. Grappling with these changes, every company has their own unique diversity, equity and inclusion journey. Kay Fuhrman, partner and leader with Heidrick & Struggles, shared eye-opening statistics showcasing workforce inequalities and why companies need to take steps to improve diversity, equity and inclusion.

According to Heidrick & Struggles data, people of color will soon account for 120% of total net workforce growth, representing the largest share of U.S. workforce growth. But today, they only make up 13% of U.S. and U.K. executive leadership. Similar inequalities exist for women who make up 80% of all consumer purchasing decisions, but only make up 25% of C-level executives at the top 1,000 U.S. companies.

Fuhrman shared that companies who make diversity a core part of their culture experience these benefits for inclusion:

17% increase in team performance
20% increase in decision-making quality
Two times more likely to meet or exceed organizational targets
Six times more likely to be innovative and agile as an organization

All organizations are located on a continuum of diversity and inclusion, Fuhrman explained. Over the past three to five years, the majority of companies fall between “supportive” and “engaged.”

Supportive companies are focused on recruiting and hiring from underrepresented groups. With engaged companies, the concept of DE&I is embedded in their core values. At the top of the continuum are companies that are considered change agents. These leaders in DE&I have a deep understanding of what it takes to make change happen and leverage diversity.

To help energy utilities start making positive change in their workforces and culture, Fuhrman shared the ABCs of key diversity best practices:

Accelerate DE&I impact and results by aligning and preparing leaders
Build visual representation by attracting external talent
Create an inclusive culture with leadership advocacy

A commitment to being a DE&I change agent

For energy utilities, the workplace should reflect the communities they serve. Sarah Oliver Carter, Chief Diversity Officer at Duquesne Light Company, shared how a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion is the foundation of the Pittsburgh-based energy utility’s workplace and mission.

To deliver on a commitment to attract and retain highly skilled talent from underrepresented communities, this year Duquesne Light Company launched a full DE&I strategy that will span the next three to five years. The utility also created a supplier diversity program to support local minority-owned businesses.

According to Carter, a commitment to DE&I started with leadership and cascaded down to other parts of the organization. The first step was aligning diversity, equity and inclusion with company strategy, then inviting employees to get involved and determine what equity means to them. The utility’s DE&I guiding principles were broken down to five main pillars:

Workforce Talent: Identify as an employer of choice. Attract, develop, retain and mentor a workforce that is reflective of the communities we serve. Enhance our employer brand to ensure that DLC is recognized as a trusted and inclusive organization.
Workforce Culture: Lead in driving and sustaining “Culture Growth.”Cultivate an environment of workplace inclusion where voices are heard, respected, valued and engaged, resulting in a workforce that sparks new and bright ideas for business success.
Customer: Support procurement in efforts to mainstream supplier diversity.
Community: Strive for excellence in customer service. Support and suggest innovative customer and business solutions through alignment with company strategy and framework.
Supplier Diversity: Lead in community impact by focusing on sustainable workforce initiatives and investing locally in the success of diverse small businesses.

As these insights illustrate, a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion needs to be an ongoing effort. Equipped with this knowledge, your energy utility can take steps to create opportunities for underrepresented populations — and create positive change in your workplace and community.

Share your energy utility’s community efforts with a customer engagement strategy from Questline Digital.

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Webinar: Financial Impact of Coronavirus on Small Businesses

The coronavirus pandemic is far from over. Businesses everywhere continue to deal with the economic fallout of the crisis even as some assistance and deferment programs come to an end. Small and medium business customers will continue to look to their energy utility throughout the winter for resources and support to survive the financial impact of coronavirus.

In Questline Digital’s Plugged In webinar, “Financial Impact of the Coronavirus on Small Businesses,” guest experts from the SBA and AEP Ohio discussed strategies for energy utilities to help SMB customers through the next phase of the crisis.

SMB customers fight to overcome COVID-19 challenges

Small business customers everywhere are feeling the stress and of the pandemic financially, mentally and emotionally. As numerous SMB owners fight to keep their dreams moving forward, others have locked their doors for what they hope is a temporary closure.

Andrea Roebker, regional communications director for the U.S. Small Business Administration, has held roundtable discussions throughout the Midwest listening to the concerns of small business owners. Through these meetings, Roebker has seen the stress of SMB owners firsthand, but she also says there is optimism as they push innovation in their businesses and remain encouraged by the possibility of future stimulus and financial aid.

Roebker’s team at the SBA takes information learned at these roundtables back to Washington, D.C., to advocate on behalf of SMB owners and their needs. She says working to save small businesses and their jobs is huge. “Small businesses are the economic engine of this country. They create two out of every three jobs.”

At its core, the SBA helps to start, grow or expand small businesses through federal taxpayer funding. The SBA not only helps to educate and guide small businesses with resources, but also helps entrepreneurs who typically would not be able to get funding through a bank. By guaranteeing loans, the SBA reduces the risk for commercial lenders.

Federal support for businesses continues

In the first months of the coronavirus outbreak, Congress passed the CARES Act and created two new programs designed to assist small businesses. The SBA launched these programs in the following weeks, which is an unusually quick turnaround for federal government decisions.

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was designed to keep employees on SMB payrolls. This program allocated money to 5.2 million small businesses and nonprofits nationwide.
Economic Injury Disaster Loan Advance was patterned after the SBA’s existing Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. Typically, this emergency funding follows natural disasters like hurricanes or tornadoes; this is the first time in the SBA’s history that a disaster fell into the pandemic category.

Those programs ended on August 8, but the SBA still offers numerous ways to assist small businesses:

SBA Debt Relief program allows the SBA to make payments toward small business loans. The SBA has made several months of payments for those loans so small business owners can focus on other expenses, like paying their energy bills.
Traditional SBA-Backed Lending loan lowers the risk for banks and includes favorable terms for small businesses, allowing them to raise needed capital. Roebker noted that fiscal year 2020 is equal to fiscal year 2019 in level of lending. “Many would think small businesses wouldn’t be going after loans like this, but they are as a means to pivot or grow their businesses.”
No-Cost Business Advising helps small businesses get support and resources they need through resource partners across the nation, including helping entrepreneurs rewrite business plans or create a digital platform.

Connecting utility customers to SMB assistance

AEP Ohio and serves about 1.5 million customers, including several thousand small business customers. According to Katie Grayem, director of customer experience with AEP Ohio, “Our goal is really to have the trusted energy provider relationship with customers.” AEP Ohio’s pandemic response was designed to meet the needs of their customers and provide win-win opportunities for them to benefit from the utility’s services and programs. The goal was to help grow the communities they serve.

Through an educational and informative role, Grayem says the energy provider also helps customers understand available programs outside of AEP Ohio. “We were trying to stay really active to help customers reach their financial obligations to ‘keep the lights on,’ as they say,” Grayem said.

A multichannel messaging strategy was an effective way to reach AEP Ohio’s customers and empathize with them. The energy utility wanted to be proactive in telling customers with past due balances what the implications would be following the disconnect moratorium in Ohio.

AEP Ohio also shifted their calling center responses from a “pay us now” mentality to offering assistance in enrolling in payment programs. For the first time, the utility offered payment plan options for non-residential customers.

AEP Ohio leveraged various communications channels, including their Questline Digital eNewsletter, social media and a specific business assistance page on their website to offer payment plan options and energy savings tips. Their business call center also had a dedicated unit with specialized training on the PPP and CARES Act programs to offer further resources to customers.

Like Roebker, Grayem sees positive signs in the business owners who are benefiting from financial assistance programs. “Unlike our residential population, who seem to be most inclined to take longer payback periods,” she said, “our commercial customers really seemed to just want to try it out and I think that’s a sign of optimism.”

Maintain a strong digital relationship with your business customers with an eNewsletter solution from Questline Digital.

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Webinar: Segmentation for Small Business Customers

Segmentation is a critical tool for energy utilities to effectively reach customers, especially small business customers. SMB customers are often hard to reach for numerous reasons, including lack of time and lack of interest in information they think is not relevant to their needs.

In this webinar, Kurt Hansen, Questline Digital AVP of products and partnerships, discusses how to use segmentation and content marketing to not only reach business customers, but create long-lasting relationships with them as well.

Business is booming with content marketing

Content marketing is all about finding the overlap between customers’ needs and your energy utility’s goals. Your strategy should focus on sharing valuable and relevant content with customers. This requires much more than an individual promotion or email — rather, it’s a way to create trust through ongoing and targeted communications.

The first step in creating content that benefits your energy utility’s business customers is research. According to Hansen, when it comes to effective content, “It’s not just about does it look good? Does it sound good? Does it tell the story? It’s also about is that story the right level of technical depth?” Different customers require different levels of technical expertise. C&I customers, for example, are going to be at a much higher technical level than residential customers.

How do you segment small business customers?

Segmentation can be a challenge, especially if your energy utility doesn’t have sufficient data to categorize customers. For example, it’s often difficult to identify the best industry segment for small business customers.

To start the segmentation process, you should see what data you currently have and what data your systems team might be able to get. Your existing information can then be supplemented with self-segmentation.

With a self-segmentation tool, business customers can visit individual pages your energy utility has created for them with targeted industry content. We encourage energy utilities to personalize these pages, with content and program information, to drive participation with your local services.

“The idea is you’re giving that industry a designated page to turn toward for updated content specifically for them and information that drives them back to your energy utility’s website to convert them to other programs,” Hansen says. Your energy utility would then have that customer’s account captured into their specific industry and interests. This creates an opportunity to start a dialog with these customers.

Self-segmentation strategy for small business

A segmentation strategy and a content marketing strategy should join forces for maximum impact. These strategies should act as the backbone of your energy utility’s digital communications strategy with customers.

“It isn’t just an individual email or promotion,” Hansen says, “it is building an overall strategy of how you want to engage with customers on a consistent, systematic and strategic level and having the content and strategy behind it to do it.”

When it comes to segmentation for small business, let your customers help do it for you. Self-segmentation is a great option when your energy utility doesn’t have the information to accurately identify which industries your SMB customers are in. Combining content marketing and segmentation, your energy utility will move in the right direction to create long-lasting customer relationships.

Learn how Questline Digital can segment and target your small business customers to increase engagement and build stronger digital relationships.

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