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Communication Strategies to Better Connect With Key Accounts

Large commercial and industrial (C&I) customers — also known as key accounts — expect more from their utility than just reliable power. These organizations face complex challenges, from meeting sustainability targets to navigating evolving regulations.

As a result, they’re looking to their utility not just as a service provider, but as a strategic partner. One who understands the unique demands of their business, offering personalized guidance and meaningful support for their energy goals.

For energy providers, this expectation means moving beyond transactional communications and focusing on building long-term customer relationships. Here are a few best practices to help your utility effectively engage key account customers.

Understand their business — and priorities

Every key account is different. From manufacturers to hospitals to university campuses, each business has its own goals, challenges and energy needs. That’s why utility key account managers must take the time to understand what matters most to these businesses.

Questions to consider:

Are they focused on energy efficiency or decarbonization goals?
Do they need support for electrification, electric vehicle (EV) charging or peak demand management?
Are they expanding operations or building new facilities?
Is cost predictability or power quality a concern?
Are they aware of helpful rebates, incentives or efficiency programs?

Familiarity with a customer’s industry, facility operations, pain points and key performance indicators allows account managers to move beyond generic recommendations and offer truly tailored energy solutions.

“Every business we serve has different priorities — some are focused on lowering their energy costs while others are working toward aggressive sustainability goals,” says Faviola Donato-Galindo, Manager of Large Accounts at Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE). “Our job is to ask the right questions, listen closely and tailor solutions that align with their unique operations. That’s the first step to building long-term, trusted partnerships.”

For example, a manufacturing plant with high peak demand may benefit from demand response programs and real-time usage insights, while a hospital may prioritize energy reliability and backup power systems. By understanding these unique needs, account managers can proactively suggest helpful programs, tools and technologies.

Support sustainability and energy goals

More large businesses are setting ambitious sustainability targets — and they are looking to their utility for guidance. Whether it’s reaching net-zero goals, improving operational efficiency or complying with state and federal sustainability mandates, businesses want a utility partner that understands their vision and can help them achieve it.

This growing demand presents a prime opportunity for key account managers to deepen relationships by becoming trusted energy advisors. When you proactively offer tailored solutions and resources, you demonstrate that your utility is invested in their long-term success.

Here are a few ways key account managers can help:

Recommend energy efficiency upgrades and rebates: Guide customers to relevant programs that reduce consumption and improve ROI, from lighting retrofits to HVAC optimization and building automation systems.
Promote renewable energy solutions: Whether it’s green power programs, onsite solar or community solar, helping businesses incorporate renewable energy supports both their goals and yours.
Share educational content: Provide insights and resources on key topics like ESG reporting, carbon footprint reduction and beneficial electrification to help customers stay ahead of evolving sustainability requirements.

For Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), the company’s mission is to serve as trusted energy advisors to business customers in order to “meet and exceed their needs through strategic partnership, proactive assistance, meaningful innovation and relevant communications.”

According to Donato-Galindo, the BGE Key Account Services team focuses on proactive outreach to key accounts, helping the team stay one step ahead, whether it’s promoting relevant energy efficiency programs or connecting business customers to vetted sustainability vendors.

“The role of key account manager is rapidly evolving. Before, it was more of a reactive role in terms of meeting the customer’s needs,” Donato-Galindo says. “But now, we are being proactive and helping customers with their carbon reduction goals. They need our help in making sure they are meeting Maryland’s ambitious Climate Pollution Reduction Plan.”

Establish ongoing, proactive touchpoints

Key account managers shouldn’t wait until a problem arises to reach out to their customers. Proactive, ongoing communication helps demonstrate your utility’s commitment to the relationship. A personalized approach — not one-size-fits-all messaging — helps large customers feel understood and supported.

A monthly key account newsletter delivers a particularly effective touchpoint. Unlike one-off emails or sporadic check-ins, a regular newsletter keeps your utility top of mind and reinforces your role as a trusted energy partner for business customers.

Newsletters are a key driver of higher customer satisfaction and building stronger relationships over time. In fact, according to Questline Digital’s 2025 Utility Benchmarks Report data, key account newsletter readers click on promotional emails at an 87% higher rate.

With each monthly edition, utilities have the opportunity to:

Provide valuable insights on market trends, energy efficiency strategies and emerging technologies relevant to large businesses.
Promote relevant utility programs and incentives tailored to commercial and industrial customers.
Share customer success stories to highlight peer examples and foster a sense of community.
Offer timely updates on rate changes, infrastructure improvements or policy changes that could affect business operations.

“To stay ahead of our customers’ needs, we take a proactive approach to engagement,” Donato-Galindo says. “One important way we do this is through consistent outreach, including our monthly newsletter. This communication serves as an important platform for sharing timely updates and valuable information with our key accounts.”

Connect through events and webinars

Face-to-face interactions and educational opportunities offer one of the most impactful ways to deepen relationships with key account customers. By creating dedicated spaces for discussion, education and collaboration, your utility can strengthen its role as a strategic energy partner for large businesses.

BGE hosts Customer Connections events throughout the year, providing key account customers with valuable opportunities to engage directly with utility leadership. These events offer large business customers the chance to meet utility leaders, ask questions and share feedback in a more personalized setting.

“We regularly connect BGE executives with our large business customers so they can learn about their pain points, challenges and opportunities,” says Calvin Little, Manager of Large Accounts at BGE. “This helps us to come up with unique solutions for each customer since hospitals, colleges and local governments all have very different energy needs.”

At a recent event, BGE brought together leaders from two local hospital systems for a conversation focused on resiliency, sustainability and storm preparedness. Discussions centered around the unique challenges these critical facilities face and how BGE can better support them. “As a critical customer, we want to understand how we can be a more effective and reliable partner,” Little noted.

To gather meaningful insights, the utility also hosts a Smart Energy Council made up of key account customers. This group meets quarterly to exchange ideas, provide feedback on initiatives and discuss emerging needs. The council serves as a valuable forum for the utility to engage directly with its largest customers and gain real-time input to guide strategy and decision-making.

Educational webinars are another valuable tool for connecting and informing key accounts. Whether you’re introducing a new rate plan, explaining evolving state sustainability requirements or showcasing innovative technologies, webinars allow utilities to engage customers at scale. They also demonstrate your utility’s commitment to helping businesses stay ahead of industry trends and meet operational goals.

For example, BGE hosted a webinar to educate large commercial customers about new state regulations, known as the Building Energy Performance Standards, which apply to buildings 30,000 square feet or larger. The event drew more than 300 attendees from across the utility’s managed accounts, showcasing strong interest and engagement.

“The feedback we received after the webinar was very positive, with customers thanking us for keeping them informed about these new state requirements,” Little says. “As their energy provider, we play a vital role in helping business customers navigate these new regulations.”

Building better business relationships

Strong relationships with key accounts don’t happen by chance — they’re built through consistent and valuable communications. Taking the time to personalize, educate and proactively engage with your key accounts will pay dividends in customer satisfaction, program participation and mutually beneficial partnerships.

Need help reaching your business customers more effectively?

Questline Digital offers business newsletter services, email templates and educational content to help your utility strengthen key account relationships year-round.

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Smart Summer Campaign Strategies for Utilities

Summer brings a unique set of challenges and opportunities for utility marketers to connect with their customers. From heat-related bill spikes to powerful storms causing outages, proactive, relevant and educational communications are vital this time of year.

Here are a few utility summer marketing campaign recommendations that support customers, boost program participation and strengthen engagement.

Help Customers Facing Financial Hardship

With increased air conditioner use, longer daylight hours and the potential for heat waves, customers often face increased energy bills in the summer months. Financial assistance campaigns can make a significant difference for those struggling to keep up with their bill payments.

High summer bills can lead to financial strain for many customers, especially:

Low-income households
Seniors on fixed incomes
Renters in older or inefficient buildings
Families with young children
Customers experiencing recent hardship/unexpected expenses

This utility summer marketing campaign should highlight available state, federal or utility-specific programs, along with eligibility requirements and key benefits. To ensure relevance, consider segmenting messages by customer need or past payment history. An empathetic tone, combined with clear next steps, can ease anxiety and guide customers toward available resources.

Use messaging that is:

Empathetic: Acknowledge that higher bills can be challenging in the summer months.
Empowering: Frame financial assistance as a proactive step customers can take to stay in control.
Inclusive: Offer communications in multiple languages and channels to ensure accessibility.

For example, FirstEnergy partnered with Questline Digital to develop a financial assistance email campaign tailored to each customer. To deliver highly targeted messages, the emails included Questline Digital’s SmartVX personalized video solution.

Each video was customized with information for one or more financial assistance programs that could be a great fit for the customer’s needs. Spanish versions were also created to engage with FirstEnergy’s diverse customer base. The SmartVX videos proved highly successful, with a 70.5% watch rate in the first four months of deployment.

As this utility marketing summer strategy showcases, targeted outreach can provide a critical safety net for customers in need. These communications have the power to build trust, improve customer satisfaction and reduce late payments or disconnections.

Example of a utility financial assistance campaign

Prepare Customers for Storm Season

As temperatures rise during the summer months, so does the potential for severe weather, high energy demand and power outages. From hurricanes to heat waves, this time of year brings a surge of events that can strain the grid and impact service reliability.

Communicating with customers ahead of a storm is one of the most effective utility marketing summer strategies to prepare communities for potential outages. Pre-storm communications give customers the information they need to take action, whether that’s charging devices, reporting outages or understanding how to stay safe during severe weather.

Best channels for pre-storm/outage communications:

Email or SMS alerts encouraging customers to sign up for outage notifications
Social media reminders about preparing an emergency kit and charging devices
Mobile app notifications with severe weather alerts and preparation tips
Website homepage banners with links to storm safety guides/outage resources

During a storm or outage, timely and transparent utility summer marketing campaigns are critical to maintaining customer trust and reducing frustration. Providing regular updates through channels like text alerts, mobile apps, social media and outage maps reassures customers that the situation is being managed and helps them feel more in control.

Effective in-the-moment communication improves the customer experience, eases pressure on call centers and reinforces the utility’s role as a reliable, responsive partner during emergencies.

Best channels for active outage updates:

Real-time outage updates via text or push notifications
Interactive outage maps showing estimated restoration times
Social media posts with safety tips (e.g., stay away from downed wires)
Email updates about affected areas and the number of customers impacted

Post-storm communications are an important part of the utility customer experience. After power is restored, customers want to understand what happened, how restoration efforts were prioritized and what steps are being taken to prevent future outages.

Sharing this information demonstrates accountability and provides an opportunity to recognize the efforts of restoration crews and the patience of the community. It’s also a chance to educate customers about outage safety, promote preparedness tools and invite feedback to improve future response efforts.

Best channels for post-storm communications:

Restoration progress emails with stats on customers restored and next steps
Social media “thank you” messages acknowledging customer patience and crew efforts
Educational emails or blog posts explaining how the restoration process works
Survey request messages to collect customer feedback on outage communications

After a recent severe weather outbreak, a large Pennsylvania utility worked with Questline Digital to email customers about the power restoration process. More than 240,000 customers lost power during the storm.

The email let customers know that power had been restored to 43,000 customers and offered safety tips and education on how the restoration process works. This outage update received high engagement, with a 36.14% Reliable Open Rate and 2.70% Click-Through Rate.

Keeping customers informed and offering helpful resources demonstrates a strong commitment to customer service, even in the face of disruption.

Educate on Water and Energy Conservation

Summer brings longer days, higher temperatures and greater demand for both water and energy. With air conditioners running at full blast and outdoor watering in full swing, utility customers often experience seasonal spikes in usage and bills.

This makes summer a prime opportunity for utility summer energy saving campaigns. Utilities should educate customers on simple ways to reduce consumption, save money and contribute to resource sustainability. From watering lawns efficiently to setting smart thermostats wisely, customers are more receptive to practical conservation advice during this high-usage season.

With many communities experiencing drought and rising temperatures, utility marketers can:

Share infographics or videos with simple seasonal savings tips.
Promote tools like online usage dashboards, leak detectors or lawn watering schedules.
Encourage behaviors like running appliances at night or installing smart thermostats.

Whether you’re promoting energy-saving habits or water-conserving behaviors, successful utility summer marketing campaignsshould be educational, engaging and memorable. In addition to supporting sustainability goals, conservation education also empowers customers to take control of their usage.

Best practices for conservation campaigns:

Timely and weather-aware: Capitalize on heat waves or drought alerts with real-time tips through email, text alerts and social media.
Segmented by customer needs: Tailor messages to different customer segments, such as homeowners, renters, business customers or those with high seasonal usage.
Visually engaging: Use eye-catching infographics, videos and animations to make the information memorable. For example, a short animation showing how much water is saved by turning off sprinklers during the hottest part of the day.
Incentivized and measurable: Promote rebates, rewards programs or smart thermostat incentives that encourage conservation. Offer ways for customers to track their usage via your mobile app or online portal.
Focused on behavior change: Highlight small, habit-forming changes, like closing blinds during the hottest part of the day or running full loads in dishwashers and washing machines, to make conservation feel achievable.

In Southern Nevada, the Las Vegas Valley Water District and Southern Nevada Water Authority have effectively used paid media campaigns to raise awareness around responsible water use and water quality.

With mandatory seasonal watering restrictions in place, the water district’s utility marketing summer strategies campaigns outreach efforts aim to educate homeowners on how to prevent water waste, particularly when it comes to landscape irrigation.

These creative campaigns strike a balance between informative and entertaining, using humor to engage audiences while delivering critical messages. The ads clearly outline conservation rules, why they matter and the simple steps customers should take, like adjusting sprinkler timers or staying updated on changing restrictions.

This example demonstrates how memorable and fun utility summer marketing campaignsare more likely to resonate with customers and inspire action.

Encourage Demand Response Participation

Demand response is critical in the summer months. Encouraging participation from key accounts and small business customers supports grid reliability and empowers businesses to take an active role in energy management and sustainability.

Large commercial and industrial customers are often ideal candidates for demand response due to their significant energy loads and capacity to make operational adjustments. However, small and mid-sized businesses, such as retailers, restaurants and offices, also present valuable opportunities when approached with flexible, easy-to-enroll options.

To boost participation, utilities should:

Highlight financial incentives: Emphasize potential cost savings, rebates or bill credits for reducing usage during peak events.
Offer flexible participation tiers: Make it easier for small businesses with limited resources to participate without impacting operations.
Provide advance notifications and clear expectations: Give businesses ample time to prepare for DR events with simple steps like pre-cooling spaces or adjusting lighting and equipment usage.
Share success stories: Showcase how other businesses in similar industries have benefited from demand response participation.

By communicating the dual value of operational savings and environmental stewardship, utilities can strengthen partnerships with business customers and build a more resilient energy system during the summer’s most demanding moments.

When businesses understand the grid and cost-saving benefits of demand response, they’re more likely to participate.

To drive participation in its Demand Response program, Consumers Energy collaborated with Questline Digital to launch a segmented utility summer marketing campaign. The initiative delivered tailored messages to two core audiences: prospective business participants and those who had previously enrolled in the program.

Centered around the theme “Better Together,” the campaign emphasized the shared value of the utility’s collaboration with local businesses, underscoring both environmental impact and financial benefits.

The emails spotlighted key incentives for prospective customers, such as financial compensation for curbing energy use during peak demand, cost savings for their business and the opportunity to support a cleaner, more reliable energy future for their community. Each message was enhanced with a compelling video testimonial from a local business.

Past participants received targeted communications encouraging them to re-enroll and reserve their place. With limited availability, the emails conveyed a sense of urgency through “Don’t miss your chance” messaging.

The integrated utility summer marketing campaign, which included email outreach, a program-focused landing page and an educational infographic, successfully boosted enrollment and helped Consumers Energy reach its program nomination goal of 180 megawatts. Participation exceeded expectations, with more businesses stepping up to contribute to grid reliability.

Example of a utility sustainability email

Make the Most of the Season

Summer presents utilities with a unique opportunity to strengthen customer relationships through timely, relevant campaigns. Whether offering financial assistance or encouraging energy and water conservation, these seasonal initiatives can make a meaningful impact.

Delivering proactive and personalized utility summer marketing campaigns help customers stay safe, save money and use resources more efficiently during the year’s hottest months.

Partner with Questline Digital to create impactful summer campaigns that engage your customers and deliver results.

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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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The Webinar Advantage: 25 Ways Utilities Can Maximize Customer Engagement

Companies everywhere, including utilities, are seeking innovative ways to engage customers and build lasting relationships. One powerful tool that has evolved leaps and bounds in the past five years is the online webinar. With their ability to connect businesses directly with customers in real-time, webinars have become an invaluable resource for utilities looking to maximize customer engagement.

Utility webinars offer a unique platform to educate, inform and connect with customers and employees. By hosting webinars, utilities can deliver valuable content directly to their target audience, providing them with insights and solutions tailored to their specific needs. Whether it’s educating customers on energy-saving practices or showcasing new industry technologies to employees, utility webinars offer an interactive and engaging way to share knowledge.

One of the key advantages of webinars is their ability to foster direct interaction between utilities and customers or employees. Unlike traditional marketing channels, utility webinars enable two-way communication, allowing customers to actively participate, ask questions and get instant responses. This level of engagement not only enhances customer satisfaction but also builds trust and loyalty. Additionally, webinars provide utilities with valuable feedback, helping them understand customer preferences, concerns and pain points, which can be used to refine products, services and messaging strategies.

Animated GIF showing technical and engagement strategies for utility webinars

“It’s time to break free from one-directional presentations where a presenter speaks at the audience,” says Christopher Loehrer, Webinar Manager at Questline Digital. “Rather, organizations need to embrace the conversational aspects of webinar events. Think about how podcasts engage with their audiences by having conversations with other subject matter experts; ask for audience participation. The format of your webinar event is only limited by your imagination.”

There are many ways utility webinars can be used to foster engagement and achieve educational and training objectives. Let’s dive into 25 effective strategies utilities can use to harness the power of webinars.

Strategic Ways to Use Utility Webinars

There are a variety of ways to think about how to leverage the advantages of webinars. Strategically using webinars means that you’re adding them into your content mix or marketing plan to help your utility reach its goals, whether improving education or increasing program enrollments.

When you’re considering the technical implications of utility webinars, you must consider the features that occur behind-the-scenes. These capabilities help increase traffic to your webinar or improve engagement throughout the event.

“Attendees expect your presentations to be informative, engaging, relatable and entertaining,” says Loehrer. “Think about what captures your attention at in-person events and sprinkle that into your webinar to increase engagement and conversion.”

Quotation about the value of utility webinars to educate and engage with customers

Some strategic ways to use utility webinars include:

1. Educational Webinars: Your utility’s marketing or program teams can host webinars to educate customers about water conservation tips, renewable energy options or new industry technologies. Additionally, educational webinars are a great way to train utility employees about trends or best practices they should be aware of.

2. Product Demos: Webinars can be used to showcase new products or services offered by your utility, providing customers with a detailed demonstration and answering any questions.

3. Customer Q&A Sessions: Utility webinars can be designed as interactive sessions where customers can ask questions about their bills, conservation strategies or any concerns they may have.

4. Efficiency Workshops: These webinars can focus on providing customers with practical tips and strategies to improve energy efficiency or water conservation in their homes or businesses, helping them save money and reduce their carbon footprint.

5. Program Launches: Webinars are an effective platform to introduce new utility programs or initiatives, including rate plans or billing options, explaining the benefits and encouraging customer participation.

6. Case Studies: Utility marketers can use webinars to share success stories of customers who have achieved significant energy or water savings or implemented sustainable practices. By highlighting these case studies, it may encourage other customers to adopt your utility’s programs or services.

7. Industry Expert Interviews: By inviting experts to speak as guests during webinars, your utility can provide valuable insights and new perspectives to customers and employees. This is also a way of keeping customers or employees informed about the latest trends and advancements inside and outside the industry.

8. Community Engagement: Webinars can be utilized to engage with local communities, addressing specific challenges and soliciting feedback or suggestions from customers.

9. Sustainability Initiatives: Leverage webinars to highlight your utility’s sustainability efforts, showcasing its commitment to renewable energy, water conservation or environmental stewardship. Explain in a thoughtful way how your utility is working to reach its sustainability goals and how these goals affect customers.

10. Conservation Challenges: Remember: webinars are fun! Try hosting energy or water conservation challenges via webinars to encourage customers to participate actively in reducing their consumption, offering incentives and rewards for achieving specific targets.

11. Customer Testimonials: Invite satisfied customers to join your utility’s webinars and share their experiences. Hearing first-hand from customers who have benefited from programs or services can encourage other customers to sign up. This is a great way to build trust and credibility.

12. Collaborative Partnerships: Webinars can be used to promote your utility’s partnerships with organizations or businesses in the community, showcasing joint efforts in promoting sustainability and conservation efforts.

13. Rebate Programs: Use webinars to provide customers with detailed information about available rebate programs, explaining eligibility criteria, application processes and the potential savings.

14 .Resource Roadmaps: Webinars can serve as a platform to present your utility’s long-term plans for a clean and sustainable future, keeping customers informed about future energy and water resource plans and resilience initiatives.

15. Virtual Tours: Organize online tours of customers’ facilities, renewable energy installations or water plants through webinars, giving customers an inside look into the operations and showcasing their commitment to sustainability.

One Southeast energy utility used webinars to empower its account managers with training and education events. With a one-person training team and busy internal subject matter experts (SMEs), the utility didn’t have the time or resources to produce quality educational assets for its 300 employees. By including webinars in its strategy, the utility was able to build a robust training program and educational library for its employees, all without exhausting the organization’s resources.

Another utility, Duke Energy, incorporated webinars into its sales strategy as a way to inform customers and encourage new sales of its programs and services. By creating webinars that catered to customers’ interests and needs, the utility was able to not only sell to its customers but educate them about the benefits of its programs. This program exceeded webinar attendance benchmarks and Duke noticed a dramatic increase in customer engagement and J.D. Power ratings since beginning the webinars.

Building Engagement with Advanced Webinar Technology

Effective educational content is key to hosting a successful webinar. But just as important are the technical features of a webinar platform. These capabilities can provide exceptional user experiences and make attendees want to come back for more.

“With a solid launch pad of features and a high-quality delivery, the sky is the limit,” says Loehrer. “Be sure to gather as much information about your attendees as possible to ensure you deliver the right message to the right viewers with these options.”

Quotation about building engagement with the technical capabilities of utility webinars

Some considerations to make about the technical capabilities of utility webinars include:

16. Interactive Tools: Utilities should have access to interactive features that encourage active participation. These tools also allow your utility to gather valuable data throughout the event. Some of these features might be a chatbox, polls and surveys, live emoji reactions, quizzes, and breakout rooms for smaller group discussions.

17. Screen Sharing and Annotation Tools: The ability to share screens during webinars allows utilities to present slides, demonstrate software or showcase visuals. Additionally, your utility may want to have whiteboard and annotation tools to facilitate real-time collaboration and illustrate concepts.

18. Cross-Promotion Tactics: A webinar platform that allows pop-up offers or banners to share more information about your utility’s programs is a great way to redirect attendees to your utility’s current offerings.

19. Professional Attendee Journey: An effective registration system and scheduling tool are essential to managing participant sign-ups and sending out reminders for upcoming utility webinars.

20. Recording Capability: An on-demand version of your utility’s webinar enables utilities to capture the session for later playback and is a valuable way to share the information with those who couldn’t attend the live event. The recording can also serve as a reference for those who did attend and wish to review or share the event with others.

21. Presentation Format: Many utility webinars are presented in a typical fashion with one speaker and a presentation deck. Consider new formats like roundtable conversations, ask-the-expert discussions, and interviews with subject matter experts to further the conversation and retain attendees’ attention.

22. Clean User Experience and Polished Delivery: As a professional organization, it’s imperative to highlight this any time you’re communicating with customers or employees. Ensure that the webinar environment you’re using is clean and easy to use for participants. The webinar platform itself should be well-suited to handle high-definition delivery, play pre-loaded videos and switch between multiple presenters and presentations seamlessly. Plus, don’t forget to include your brand colors and logo to keep your webinars consistent with other communications.

23. Webinar Series: Webinar series that are delivered on a consistent schedule helps your utility stay top-of-mind with attendees. As you continue to produce webinars, you may find some topics resonate with attendees more than others. The ability to adjust webinars as the year progresses is also an important capability.

24. Analytics and Reporting: Robust reporting capabilities provide utilities with insights into attendance rates, engagement levels and attendee feedback to evaluate the success of their webinars. Remember: The key to measuring success is knowing what works and what doesn’t.

25. Accessibility: Accessibility comes in many forms. Make sure your utility webinar is accessible for viewers on desktop or mobile devices, in multiple languages and with closed captioning features so that all attendees have the best experience possible.

These technical features help to create a dynamic and engaging webinar experience for both utilities and the audience, fostering effective communication and knowledge sharing.

National Grid and Eversource effectively used technical features that contributed to successful webinars. As many Americans struggled to make utility payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, the two utilities partnered to get the word out about their available financial assistance programs. They worked with Questline Digital to produce a series of educational webinars.

To accommodate the varying needs of customers, the webinars were produced with closed captioning and broadcast separately in Spanish and Portuguese. The webinars also included video of an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter. By incorporating these features, the utilities were able to reach a broader audience. In fact, the language accommodations were met with such positivity that National Grid and Eversource permanently changed how they promote services, ensuring information is available to those with varying needs. Over 9,770 total customers registered for the webinars to learn about solutions for their energy bills, with nearly 1,000 attending the ASL broadcast.

Leveraging The Benefits of Utility Webinars

The potential benefits of incorporating webinars into your utility’s educational and training strategies are undeniable. Webinars offer a unique opportunity to engage with customers and employees in a dynamic and interactive manner, fostering meaningful connections and delivering valuable content. By leveraging the technical features discussed above, utilities can create compelling webinar experiences that drive customer engagement.

With the rapid advancements in technology and the increasing emphasis on digital communication, it’s crucial for utilities to stay ahead of the curve. By investing in webinars, utilities can harness the power of real-time engagement to build stronger relationships with customers, train employees, enhance brand reputation and ultimately drive conversions.

“Webinars are a unique way to deliver information and measure success,” says Loehrer. “Start with your end goal in mind and work with an expert team to align the strategy to your goals.”

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Why Consistency Matters in Utility Customer Communications

Effective communication has become more important than ever for utility marketers. To truly connect with customers, water and energy providers must adopt an outreach strategy that goes beyond a simple, one-time approach.

In fact, it takes five to seven interactions for a customer just to remember a brand. An effective communications strategy requires a consistent series of touchpoints that work together to build trust, loyalty and familiarity over time.

The key to success lies in maintaining consistency in utility customer communications. By establishing regular and reliable interactions, utilities can cultivate trust and loyalty. This forms the foundation of a genuine digital relationship, leading to a multitude of benefits.

The Benefits of Enhanced Communication with Utility Customers

Consistency in utility customer communications cannot be overlooked. The benefits of such an approach are substantial, including:

Stronger digital customer relationships
Increased customer control in decision-making
Enhanced operational efficiencies and reduced costs
Increased customer retention and loyalty
Boost in brand awareness and reputation

Chart listing the benefits of consistent utility communications

Building strong digital customer relationships

Prioritizing consistent utility customer communication is essential for fostering a strong digital relationship. By regularly sharing relevant information, your utility can keep customers informed and engaged on your utility’s services and operations.

Brian Lindamood, VP of Marketing and Content Strategy at Questline Digital, emphasizes the importance of maintaining consistency in order to build strong digital relationships with customers. “Merely reaching out to customers when there is a need does not constitute a true relationship,” says Lindamood. “To form strong digital relationships, utility companies must consistently deliver proactive messages that align with customers’ interests and needs.”

Ensuring regular delivery of relevant and personalized content is vital for building and maintaining a strong digital relationship with customers. By consistently providing valuable information, you establish yourself as a reliable source they can turn to. This not only keeps your utility’s audience engaged but also allows them to foster a deeper connection with your brand.

One way to foster engagement is through consistent touchpoints like newsletters. Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) achieved increased engagement and participation in its energy efficiency programs by doing just this. The utility established a monthly residential email newsletter that included educational content for customers, plus information on the utility’s programs. By maintaining this consistent digital relationship, SWEPCO saw a substantial increase in customer engagement and satisfaction.

Increased customer control in decision-making

When it comes to utility services, the complexity and unfamiliarity of industry jargon can often leave customers feeling confused and frustrated.

Regular communication with utility customers is crucial in helping educate them and improve understanding of programs and new technologies. As customer education increases, the more empowered they’ll feel to take control of their energy and water usage. This can be achieved by providing educational resources that allow customers to stay updated with the latest trends, important news, billing updates, rate options, program promotions and more.

When customers are well-informed about their utility’s offerings, they have the confidence to select programs and services that best suit their needs and goals. This not only benefits the customers but also strengthens the relationship between the utility and its customers, fostering trust and loyalty.

Enhanced operational efficiencies and reduced costs

By streamlining communication channels and processes, utilities can eliminate inefficiencies and minimize the risk of miscommunication. This not only saves time but also reduces operational costs, allowing utilities to allocate resources more effectively.

Sarah Sharp, Business Development Consultant with Questline Digital, says, “There is a lot of information to communicate for utility customers, so it is important to minimize jargon and send information when it is most relevant.”

Well-informed customers are less likely to phone a call center, and when they do have questions they will know where to find answers using digital resources. A consistent digital relationship also drives adoption of programs like paperless billing and autopay, further reducing operational costs for utilities.

Pull quote about the importance of consistency in utility customer communications

Increased customer retention and loyalty

Maintaining consistent communication with utility customers enables utilities to position themselves as trusted community resources. “Building trust is the most crucial element in customer communications,” says Sharp.” If people don’t trust you, they won’t listen to you.”

In building trust, customers will know that they can turn to their utilities for guidance on their energy and water usage, cost-saving tips, programs to participate in, and more.

Consistent outreach also raises the visibility of the utility across different touchpoints. “Customers are receiving information in many different channels. When it comes to omnichannel communication, it is crucial to be consistent between channels,” says Sharp. This means ensuring your messages are consistent in tone and language, as well as being delivered in the channels customers expect to receive communications in.

Boost in brand awareness and reputation

Through consistent messaging across channels, utilities can reach a wider audience and showcase their commitment to customer satisfaction. This increased visibility and positive reputation can build new customer relationships and strengthen existing ones.

One way to demonstrate this commitment is to focus on proactive communications versus reactive communications. For example, informing customers about potential outages during storm season can help them be better prepared, even if an outage doesn’t occur. This proactive approach not only builds trust but also highlights the utility’s dedication to keeping customers informed and supported.

One major investor-owned utility in the Northeast focused on these types of communications to ensure customers received timely updates ahead of forecasted storms. By leveraging pre-built email templates, the utility was able to quickly deploy messages with information regarding the projection of the storm, as well as highlighting self-service resources customers could use to stay connected.

Best Practices to Ensure Consistent Communications with Utility Customers

Consistency in customer communication plays a pivotal role in a utility’s outreach strategy, but it can come with challenges as well. Here are two ways to foster success.

Conduct regular training and upskilling programs for employees

Providing regular training and upskilling programs for employees helps them develop strong communication skills and stay updated with industry trends. This ensures that all customer-facing employees are equipped to effectively communicate with customers.

For example, with limited resources and a small training team, one Southeast utility faced challenges in educating its customer-facing employees to address customer questions. To combat this challenge, the utility leveraged monthly training webinars that were customized to meet the needs of the account managers, who were then better prepared to engage with customers.

Leverage marketing automation tools

Customers want a seamless experience from start to finish, and that’s not possible unless employees have the resources they need to quickly and easily communicate with them. By managing their customer interactions with automation tools, utilities can ensure timely outreach that meets customer expectations from beginning to end.

A Midwest energy utility integrated a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to replace their traditional way of deploying emails. Questline Digital’s Engage platform enabled the utility to manage and send quick-turn communications to its customers, using pre-approved templates and centralized customer lists. As a result, the utility successfully sent nearly 3.7 million operational emails, facilitating a seamless and timely customer experience.

Harness the Power of Consistency in Utility Customer Communications

Consistent communication with utility customers brings numerous benefits, such as improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, enhanced operational efficiency and increased brand awareness. By implementing consistent communication strategies and leveraging appropriate tools, energy utilities can establish themselves as trusted advisors while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Learn how Questline Digital can help your utility deliver consistent customer communications and build stronger digital relationships.

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