Tag: Customer Engagement

Illustration of satisfied utility customers resulting from customer journey mapping

Webinar: The Ins and Outs of Utility Customer Journey Mapping

To help solve problems and transform the customer journey, energy utilities need to think like their customers.

In our webinar, “The Ins and Outs of Utility Customer Journey Mapping,” Zach Hardison, VP of Solutions Innovation at Questline Digital, and Brent Baker, VP and Chief Customer Officer at City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri, provide insights on the importance of customer journey maps and why they are essential to helping energy utilities transform the customer experience.

“Customer journey mapping is a design framework that helps us solve customer problems with the customer in mind,” Baker says. “We often go into the utility mindset on how to design something, but customer journey maps really help us elevate our minds to what it is like to be our customers and to develop processes with the customer as our focus.”

What Is Customer Journey Mapping?

Customer journey mapping is a visual workflow that outlines a step-by-step experience that customers have with a brand, service or product. According to Hardison, a customer journey map highlights a customer’s actions, emotions and behaviors within an experience:

  • Actions: This includes any actions that the customer is taking or any actions that your energy utility is taking
  • Emotions: How your customers or employees may be feeling about a particular pain point along the journey
  • Behaviors: How your customers are behaving or moving through an experience

“Customer journey mapping allows you to think like your customers to better understand how they feel about your utility as a company, brand and experience,” Hardison explains.

A customer journey map has many benefits for energy utilities, including:

  • Strategy and resource planning
  • Identifying customer pain points
  • Improving customer satisfaction
  • Identifying operational efficiencies

Hardison notes that customer journey mapping is an excellent tool for strategy and resource planning. It allows you to identify an experience that’s difficult for customers as well as the specific pain points. For example, a customer journey map can tell you where customers get hindered in a process, such as signing up for paperless billing, receiving outage text alerts or enrolling in an energy efficiency program.

“I see customer journey maps as a catalyst to bring a more customer-focused culture into an organization,” Baker says. “From the utility perspective, a customer journey map helps us to be relentless at solving customer problems. The journey mapping process can bring diverse groups together to solve problems differently than they had before.”

Quotation from Zach Hardison Your customer journey map should always be actionable

Customer Journey Mapping Examples from Other Industries

To showcase the effectiveness of customer journey mapping, Hardison and Baker shared a variety of examples from other industries. For example, several years ago, Ford Motor Company designers were strategizing how to make opening a car door low effort for consumers. They utilized customer journey mapping to walk through the specific steps that would be required for customers to open their car door using a smartphone app.

The designers found that a digital solution actually hindered customers and made the experience far worse. The customer journey map became the genesis for a much more user-friendly and easily accessible solution. Ford’s hands-free Liftgate allows customers to open it by kicking their foot underneath the vehicle.

Hardison shared how Starbucks took advantage of customer journey mapping to create more channel options to meet customers’ preferences. The world’s largest coffee chain wanted to find a solution for customers who enjoyed the experience of going to a coffee shop and interacting with the baristas but desired a more streamlined experience.

Ultimately, Starbucks created their drive-through window with this customer base in mind. For a subgroup of customers who are less extroverted and more tech-savvy, the mobile app order came into fruition. With customer journey mapping, Starbucks was able to create the right experiences to meet the unique needs of their customers.

Example of customer journey mapping from Ford

How Do You Create a Customer Journey Map?

Creating a customer journey map starts with these five steps:

  • Identify the experiences you want to analyze
  • Identify the users in the experience — primary, secondary, etc.
  • Cluster your users into distinct groups
  • Interview users from your groups to get direct input
  • Map out the steps, including actions, mediums, emotions and behaviors

If you already have an experience you want to analyze, Hardison recommends identifying the users and breaking them down into specific personas, such as tech-savvy customers or those who own an electric vehicle. Identifying your primary users provides a better understanding of who your energy utility should be building experiences around.

“It’s also helpful to have one-on-one interviews with your customers to get their direct input. During these conversations, customers will tell you what you want to hear and probably what you don’t want to hear,” Hardison says. “Either way, you’ll receive a highly objective view of your company and experience.”

For Baker, customer journey mapping was essential to improve City Utilities’ power outage experience and emergency service requests — two moments of frustration for customers. The utility set up a cross-functional team to develop the customer journey map and expedite improvements. Through this process, they were able to recognize what was most important to customers. For example, how often do customers want to be texted during an outage and what information do they want to receive?

“We experienced some resistance on providing an estimated restoration time to customers,” Baker says. “It requires a lot from our operations group to stop what they are doing to provide restoration updates. However, we discovered these communications are very important to customers.”

Quotation from Brent Baker From the utility perspective, a customer journey map helps us to be relentless at solving customer problems

Making Progress with Your Utility Customer Journey Map

Once you have a customer journey map, your energy utility can identify the possibilities:

  • Prioritize your pain points
  • Define your desired outcomes
  • Identify your metrics and success measurements
  • Make the customer journey map actionable

According to Hardison, it’s essential to prioritize your pain points in alignment with your primary user or target demographic. This helps you to understand what you are going to do first, second and third. What pain points do you want to alleviate the most? What are you willing to hold off on? It’s also important to understand the level of effort to reach your desired outcomes.

“If something is painful but a high effort to solve, you might want to reconsider if you do that first or not,” Hardison explains. “If something is painful and low effort, that will usually jump to the top of the list. This is a good exercise to go through to identify what solutions you’re going to implement.”

After defining your pain points and desired outcomes, the next step is identifying metrics and success measures. As your energy utility implements change, it’s key to have a process in place to measure improvements over time. This ensures you have the data you need to communicate regarding ROI and the progress you’re making toward long-term goals and objectives.

“Your customer journey map should always be actionable,” Hardison says, “It’s not just a pretty picture you hang on your wall and call it done. It’s a springboard and catalyst to robust projects and definable action.”

Quotation from Brent Baker We often go into the utility mindset on how to design something but customer journey maps really help us elevate our minds to what it is like to be our customers and to develop processes with the customer as our focus

Utility Customer Journey Mapping: A Catalyst for Change

From major brands to small businesses, companies worldwide are taking advantage of customer journey mapping to address customer pain points. This framework helps your energy utility build the momentum necessary to make positive changes. With an actionable journey map, the possibilities are endless to improve the customer experience.

“It really gives us an ability to have a conversation about making changes,” Baker says. “I found early on during my time in customer service, it was often difficult to explain the real benefits of making changes for customers. Oftentimes, it looked like cost impacts, not benefits. The journey map really helps you understand what it’s like to be a customer of your business.”

Learn how a customer engagement strategy from Questline Digital can address the pain points on your utility’s customer journey map.

Learn More
Illustration of energy utility webinar using tips and tricks from experts

Webinar Tips and Tricks from the Experts

Energy utility customers no longer want or hope for engaging digital experiences — they expect them. These experiences offer opportunities for people to learn and understand things they might not otherwise encounter.

For example, during the height of the pandemic, the Google Arts & Culture team partnered with over 2,500 museums and galleries to offer free virtual tours and online exhibits worldwide. Not only did this allow people to travel without leaving their homes, it also created a unique sense of connection as people experienced these virtual visits together.

When it comes to your customers, they want nothing short of an engaging digital experience from their energy utility. The past two years have shown that webinars are highly successful at providing these experiences. In fact, 2020 saw a total increase of 160% in digital experiences, according to the 2021 Digital Experience Benchmarks Report.

Webinars are a unique way to connect with utility customers and employees, sharing educational resources or training tools with each group. However, what does an engaging digital experience look like?

According to Mark Bornstein, Vice President of Marketing and aptly named “Chief Webinerd” for On24, it’s a branded experience that includes multimedia, multitouch content as well as human interaction.

“Our audiences no longer want passive experiences,” says Bornstein. “They’re looking for multimedia experiences — this idea of really mixing and matching the forms of media and the different types of content in a different experience. We need to deliver multitouch content experiences where people get lots of content in every experience. And every experience needs to feel like an approachable human experience.”

Read on to learn more expert advice for creating an effective, interactive webinar to engage with your utility’s customers or employees as you educate them. Then, download Questline Digital’s checklist and put these tips to good use during your next webinar.

Top 10 Webinar Tips and Tricks

These are the top 10 webinar tips and tricks to produce successful and engaging virtual events.

  1. Maintain a consistent schedule
  2. Build a multichannel promotion strategy
  3. Ensure you have an engaging host
  4. Limit the number of presenters
  5. Practice, practice, practice
  6. Know your audience
  7. Make the presentation engaging
  8. Plan for the unexpected
  9. Follow up with registrants
  10. Make the webinar available on-demand
Infographic listing top 10 webinar tips and tricks

Webinar Tip 1: Maintain a Consistent Schedule

The best webinar series has built-in loyalty by being consistent with topics and presentation days. Customers know what to expect and when to expect the webinars because the schedule has been communicated from the start.

Questline Digital’s client, Arizona Public Service (APS), is well-known for this approach. “They host webinars regularly — about two webinars a month for the past three years,” says Josh Platt, Questline Digital Account Director. “Some may see this as overkill, but it’s simply consistent branding, allowing the utility to have a pre-determined editorial calendar and loyal attendees.”

Webinar Tip 2: Build a Multichannel Promotion Strategy

It’s imperative to go where your customers are. This means promoting webinars in emails, on social media and your utility’s website. The more you promote your webinar, the more registrants you’re bound to get. Bornstein reminds us, “Everywhere your audience goes to interact with your brand, they should be met with, not a piece of content, but an experience.”

Platt again points to the success of APS, noting, “They do a great job promoting their webinars online and offline. They publish articles or ads in a trade journal once a quarter that lists their upcoming webinars. They also cross-promote on social media to reach people who may not be on their email list.

“If you’re promoting well, you’re doing a number of things,” Platt adds. “The benefits of online and offline promotions extend to list building and outreach to customers you may not currently have in your network.”

Questline Digital’s webinar tips and tricks recommends starting promotions for webinars six to eight weeks in advance. When sending emails, consider sending three in advance and two after the event:

  • First email one month before webinar
  • Second email two weeks before webinar
  • Third email the week of the webinar
  • “Thank you” email after the webinar to those who registered and attended
  • “Sorry we missed you” email to those who did not attend with a link to a recording of the webinar

“With APS, we plan an entire year’s worth of webinars by October and have them promoted offline in a magazine the first week of November,” Platt says. “If you’re wanting to work off of best practices, you’re promoting a ways out.”

Infographic listing advice for advanced promotion webinar tricks and tips

Webinar Tip 3: Ensure You Have an Engaging Host

Even if the content and presenters are top-of-the-line for your webinar, it’s still key to have an emcee or host who can moderate questions and move along the conversation.

Your host can hold different responsibilities depending on the webinar. They can be virtually invisible during the presentation, only appearing when needed, or they can be face or voice for your webinar or series. No matter which way your utility chooses to go, ensure you have a host who is engaging and lively — nothing is worse than having a monotone voice trying to carry the conversation.

In addition, your emcee should be able to quickly navigate the conversation, moving it from one speaker to another or directing questions to specific presenters to keep the webinar from stumbling into an awkward lull. Managing the time and pace of the webinar is also imperative; the host should be able to jump in and remind presenters of the time remaining and keep things moving.

Webinar Tip 4: Limit the Number of Presenters

It’s best to include multiple subject matter experts in your webinar to provide different perspectives and unique answers to customer questions. However, having too many presenters at once can often do more harm than good, making the presentation overwhelming and confusing for attendees.

Kelly Metz, Digital Campaign Production Specialist with Questline Digital, suggests no more than four presenters during a webinar, saying “Too many cooks will spoil the soup.”

Metz also advises that when including multiple presenters, be prepared in advance by deciding:

  • Who will move the presentation slides
  • How and when to transition between speakers
  • Who will moderate Q&A
  • What location to present from so you have a reliable internet connection

“If possible, use the same hardware, software and location in both practice sessions and the live webinar,” Metz adds. “If it was successful in the dry run, chances are that it will work for the live run.”

Bornstein also shares the importance of utilizing video during your webinars and showing the presenters’ faces. “Video is table stakes at this point,” he says. “If you’re not showing your face, you’re not doing digital marketing.”

Quotation about webinar tips and tricks reading Video is table stakes at this point If youre not showing your face youre not doing digital marketing

Webinar Tip 5: Practice, Practice, Practice

Everyone knows the phrase, “practice makes perfect” and yet it continues to ring true. “You can’t go into a webinar thinking it’s any other meeting, especially if you’re on camera,” Platt says. “You need to practice, prepare and plan.”

Questline Digital suggests holding a dry-run event one or two weeks before the live webinar to ensure there are no technical difficulties and that each person understands the way the platform works.

Another webinar tip and trick is that each individual needs to plan accordingly for his or her own performance. “You need to think about how you want to look — dressing the part with a shirt and tie or being casual in a hoodie and letting the content speak for itself,” Platt says. “Practice using hand gestures in camera view. Practice smiling and nodding even when you’re muted — those things go a long way.”

It’s important to remember that most attendees registered for the event because of the content, but they stay because of the presenters. It’s imperative to make sure the presentation is engaging and worth attendees’ time.

“Remember, whether you’re on camera or not, the webinar is being recorded forever and could potentially be broadcast to the world,” Platt says.

Webinar Tip 6: Know Your Audience

Webinars can be used as tools to promote programs to residential customers, educational resources to small business owners or training materials to employees. No matter what your utility’s goal, it’s critical to understand the audience that will be attending to develop webinar content appropriately. In addition, knowing your audience’s interests or level or expertise and developing webinars to meet their needs is an immediate way to build trust.

Invest in open and closed captioning subtitles and provide options for multilingual viewing. Depending on your service territory, you may not be able to assume that English is your customers’ preferred language, and you should never assume that they can hear spoken language.

“Make the investment” in multilingual support, Platt says. “Build that trust with your customers and prove to them that your utility cares. If you don’t, you’re missing out on an important touchpoint.”

National Grid and Eversource lean into this, ensuring all its customers are accounted for when producing webinars. As customers struggled financially due to the pandemic, National Grid and Eversource developed webinars to promote their financial assistance programs. To accommodate the varying needs of customers, the webinars were produced with closed captioning and broadcast in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The webinars also included live video of an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, which attracted nearly 1,000 attendees to its broadcast alone.

Illustration of case study that reads National Grid and Eversource focus on inclusivity in a virtual world

Webinar Tip 7: Make the Presentation Engaging

Despite expert presenters and subject matter experts, if a presentation falls flat, so does the whole webinar. After all, “It’s not a presentation that you’re delivering, it’s an experience that you’re giving,” says Bornstein.

A few simple webinar tips and tricks when creating the deck for your presentation include:

  • Keep the text to a minimum
  • Utilize bullet points for easy skimming
  • Include relevant imagery
  • Build links into the content

“If you can’t sell it in three bullet points and a pretty picture, you’re talking too much,” says Platt. “The purpose of a webinar is getting people interested in taking another action. You don’t need to explain everything, just enough for them to want to know more.”

“We’ve seen a great evolution away from talking PowerPoints to creating really great serialized programming in the world of webinars,” Bornstein says. “We’ve seen webinars do all these really cool formats, where there are interview shows and news style formats and coffee talks and chat shows and they’re really taking their inspiration from TV-like viewing experiences more than the old-school tutorials of the past.”

Webinar Tip 8: Plan for the Unexpected

As everyone has been keenly aware of during the past two years of increased digital experiences, technology is not always on our side. This is why it’s so important for your webinar’s host and presenters to prepare for every failure that could happen. “Whether your cell phone battery dies or the dog is barking or a tree is being cut down in your yard, plan for the unexpected,” says Platt. “Plan for failure and you will avoid failing.”

When preparing for a webinar, Questline Digital recommends:

  • Have a hard copy of your script and presentation on hand
  • Charge and mute your phone
  • Share your phone number with the other presenters and webinar producers in case of disconnection
  • Have a backup way of connecting to audio

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a webinar technical producer, it’s that planning for the unexpected is imperative to the success of a webinar event,” explains Josh Dozer, Client Operations Coordinator for Questline Digital. “Numerous contingencies have been put in place to account for as many unknowns as possible, dramatically improving the experiences of both audience members and presenters alike. However, it’s still up to each individual to plan and prepare for the unknowns.”

Quotation about webinar tricks and tips that reads Plan for failure and you will avoid failing

Webinar Tip 9: Follow Up with Registrants

Another key webinar tip and trick is to connect with all registrants after the live event. This includes the following groups:

  • Those who registered and attended
  • Those who registered but didn’t attend
  • Those who didn’t register or attend

Each follow-up email should contain a message that is specific to the intended receivers. For those who didn’t register or attend the webinar, the follow-up needs to explain how your utility felt the topic was important enough to reach out again.

For the other two types of follow-up messages, saying “thank you for attending” or “sorry we missed you” goes a long way. Provide key takeaways from the webinar and a link to view the webinar on-demand. A multistate Northeast investor-owned utility has gone a step further to embed a survey link in their follow-up communications to encourage customers to share about their webinar experiences. The survey responses help the utility best prepare for its future webinars.

In addition, you can create brief audio or video highlights from the webinar that can be shared on social media, in emails or on your website. For example, Questline Digital identifies relevant soundbites from each webinar we host and turns them into short audio recordings to share on social media.

Example of audio content for webinar tips and tricks

Platt recommends this tactic specifically as a list-building activity. “If you’ve scripted it well and have done a good presentation, you can take a 60-minute webinar and cut it into five 10-minute segments to promote to customers who you don’t have an email address for and attain that information from them,” he says.

Bornstein adds, “Now, you can build the event and take the event content and repurpose it in so many different ways. Perhaps creating personalized experiences or virtual roadshows using a targeted personalized landing page. This means that digital events are not just an event, they’re a strategy.”

Webinar Tip 10: Make the Webinar Available On-Demand

An absolute must-have when it comes to webinars is making the event available on-demand following the live production. This extends the lifecycle of the content and allows customers to continue the webinar experience, whether they originally registered or not.

Questline Digital offers on-demand webinars as a standard part of our webinar solution for energy utilities. We can also provide a cleaned-up recording of the webinar, where our video producers switch between full-screen cameras and the presentation to increase engagement.

As an additional benefit of on-demand webinars, Platt recommends capturing customers’ names and email addresses when they view the recording. “This is another touchpoint where your utility can continue to build its lists and extend the reach of its communication.”

Successful Webinars Begin with Preparation

The most engaging and successful webinars are created through consistent preparation and practice. Between the speakers, host and presentation, there are many moving parts to getting a webinar up and running. The key is to remember how the pieces come together and to begin preparations well in advance.

“Post-COVID audiences expect a different kind of connection and a different kind of communication,” Bornstein says. “They’re looking for us to connect in real, authentic ways. They’re looking for experiences that are interactive. Maybe they’re looking to be entertained a little bit, but they’re looking for experiences that are real, human, authentic and approachable.”

Whether your goal is to educate customers or employees, following these webinar tips and tricks will set your utility up for long-term success.

Download Questline Digital’s free checklist and follow our experts’ tips and tricks to boost engagement during your utility’s next webinar.

Learn how Questline Digital’s energy experts can educate your target audience with engaging, interactive and personalized online webinars.

Learn More
Illustration of webinar content strategy for energy utilities

Building Your Utility’s Webinar Content Strategy

Discover these best practices for creating a winning webinar content strategy to educate utility customers and employees.

In today’s digital world of Zoom and FaceTime, webinars are booming. In fact, a recent study finds the use of webinars increased by 162% and attendance nearly quadrupled in the past two years. That’s why it important for energy utilities to take advantage of a webinar content strategy to educate and engage customers and employees.

“Webinars are proven to be a convenient and cost-effective outreach effort to educate customers,” says Mike Carter, Senior Energy Analyst with Questline Digital. “This form of communication positions your energy utility as a go-to expert and resource for energy end-use implementation. Customers become more confident that their utility can help them.”

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, energy utilities would host a variety of events in person for business customers, residential customers, trade allies and other audiences. This would require them to rent a hall or hotel meeting space, along with AV equipment, and cater a lunch or breakfast for hundreds of attendees. A webinar simplifies this often-complicated process, saving time and expense while achieving the same goal.

“First and foremost, webinars allow a democratization of access, so customers don’t need to attend a training in person,” says Josh Platt, Account Director with Questline Digital. “You can accomplish the same thing with a webinar for less cost and effort. Plus, you’re able to reach more people who otherwise would not be able to attend.”

Ready to use webinars to provide value to customers at a low cost? The next step is building your webinar content strategy. This is not a one-size-fits-all solution — it requires a tailored approach based on your target audience, trending topics and your program goals.

Connect with C&I customers

Webinars are a popular platform to reach commercial and industrial (C&I) customers, as this audience is accustomed to learning through virtual environments. Plus, business owners and facility managers regularly lean on their energy utility provider for guidance around energy and cost-savings programs and safety solutions.

With an effective webinar content strategy, your energy utility can educate C&I customers on ways to reduce costs, increase energy efficiency and solve facility-related issues. Carter recommends monthly webinars as an ideal frequency to serve as an energy resource for commercial customers.

“Another important benefit of webinars is addressing the age-old human question: What have you done for me lately?” Carter explains. “If you have a webinar every month, your business customers are reminded that their utility is here for them with the right resources.”

To develop a webinar content strategy that resonates with C&I customers, you’ll need to focus on common issues facing businesses in your service territory. For example, perhaps many businesses have experienced power quality issues or requested guidance on electrifying their warehouses and fleets.

“If businesses are having power quality issues and you haven’t been able to do enough to fix it, help them deal with that with a power quality basics webinar,” Carter explains. “If your utility is launching a new rebate for electric forklifts, create a webinar that educates customers about the benefits of the program and electrification.”

When crafting your webinar content strategy, Platt recommends taking advantage of seasonal topics. For example, since businesses are conducting maintenance on their cooling units in the winter (when they are not in use), consider creating a related webinar in January or February. Likewise, consider a webinar that discusses boiler maintenance in the summertime.

“Thinking about seasonal topics is essential — you need to be working months ahead of the season,” Platt says. “If you’re a retailer, you’re not planning for Christmas in December, you’re planning in March or April.”

According to Questline Digital’s 2021 Benchmarks Report, the top 10 most popular webinar topics for C&I customers included:

  • Chiller/RTU maintenance
  • ENERGY STAR ® portfolio manager
  • Improving the quality of indoor air
  • Energy efficiency for commercial customers
  • Energy savings opportunities for schools
  • Power quality solutions
  • Energy efficiency financial analysis
  • Compressed air energy management
  • Energy storage
  • Standby generators for business continuity

Be an energy resource for residential customers

Residential customers are more challenging to reach with webinars. This target audience isn’t often thinking about their energy provider unless they get their monthly bill or a power outage occurs. Your webinar content strategy for residential customers should include trending topics and relevant programs and services.

According to Carter, residential customers are often motivated by gadgets and the latest tech, such as smart home technology, electric vehicles and solar power. Consider a webinar strategy that discusses ways to save energy with smart home devices or the benefits of owning an EV.

“When there is a new rollout of a program, a webinar is a great way to communicate the details with your customers,” Carter explains. “This could be done on an as-needed basis, such as when your utility is debuting a new EV rebate program.”

Webinars can also help residential customers learn about services they may not even realize your energy utility offers. For example, many customers are unaware that your utility offers an energy marketplace. Consider creating a webinar that educates customers on the benefits of shopping at your marketplace over big box retailers.

“If you’re running an email promotion, a social media campaign or have a page on your website promoting something, there is no reason why you couldn’t do a webinar too,” Platt says.

Your webinar content strategy should also help notify customers of important information they need to know. For example, if your utility is implementing a new rate plan, a webinar can help ensure trust and transparency between your utility and residential customers.

Questline Digital worked with a large Southwest energy utility to create a webinar series about their payment assistance program to customers facing financial hardship. Before utilizing webinars, the utility was renting a hotel meeting space where they might get around 30 customers to attend the in-person event, Platt notes. Many customers in this demographic can’t leave work to attend an event, so a 30-minute webinar is much more feasible.

“Now, they can have 1,000 customers attend for a third of the cost,” Platt explains. “Plus, the webinar can be recorded and repurposed for YouTube or Facebook, giving these customers the ability to watch the webinar on their own time. It truly makes the information outreach more egalitarian.”

Educate utility employees with a webinar content strategy

In addition to engaging with residential and business customers, webinars are also an effective platform to educate energy utility employees.

When creating a webinar content strategy for utility employees, consider what topics will help them become energy experts and resources for customers. This is also an opportunity to refresh employees on the details of your various programs and services.

“Webinars are one of the best options to increase employee engagement and education,” says Jayne Culbertson, Senior Account Manager with Questline Digital. “This platform allows employees to take a deeper dive into a topic compared to just reading an article or watching a video. Plus, utilities can obtain employee feedback, which is invaluable.”

Questline Digital worked with a major Southeast energy utility to create monthly training webinars for account managers and new employees. The webinars, which focused on a variety of business topics, helped their employees become a source of knowledge for commercial customers. Following each webinar, the recording is added to the utility’s internal learning management system to give employees a chance to watch at a later time.

“Our utility client created a custom webinar to help employees learn about electric forklifts,” Culbertson explains. “The webinar highlighted the benefits of electric forklifts and provided specific details about the related rebate program. All of the webinars feature relevant information and trending topics that employees are likely to get questions about.”

Another webinar topic, commercial kitchens, was designed to educate account managers on energy efficient kitchens for restaurants, schools and other facilities. With the right webinar content strategy, utility employees can enhance their knowledge on valuable topics of interest to both residential and business customers.

“Webinars are a complement to other communication efforts, such as newsletters, email promotions and social media,” Culbertson says. “It’s important to select and align webinar topics around other programs and initiatives at your utility so customers are getting the same information on the platform that works best for them.”

Webinars Bring Value, Greater Convenience to Customers

In today’s digital landscape, consumers are accustomed to learning and attending events online. Webinars give your customers and employees valuable information without the hassle of commuting to a hotel or event space. Whether you’re looking to educate customers or employees, webinars are an essential tool in your marketing strategy.

Learn how Questline Digital can help create a webinar content strategy for your energy utility.

Learn More
Illustration of mailbox with utility newsletter

Utility Newsletter: A Key Tool for Customer Engagement

To keep customers engaged in between billing notices and program promotions, energy utilities should have a consistent touchpoint like a monthly utility newsletter. This ongoing communication is popular across audiences, from residential customers to small business owners to C&I facility managers.

According to Questline Digital’s 2020 Energy Utility Benchmarks Report, utility newsletter readers are much more engaged with their energy utility’s program promotions. In fact, residential eNewsletter readers open promotional emails at a 37% higher rate. Small and medium business eNewsletter readers click on promotional emails at a 73% higher rate.

To gain more insights, we spoke with Brian Lindamood, Questline Digital’s VP of Marketing & Content Strategy, about the power of eNewsletters and why they are essential for energy utilities.  

Why are utility newsletters a vital customer engagement tool?

A monthly email newsletter is a critical part of a customer engagement strategy for any energy utility. They provide a regular touchpoint — a monthly reminder that the utility is working to improve customers’ lives — which is key to maintaining customer satisfaction over the long run. As part of a comprehensive content strategy, eNewsletters can reinforce messages shared on social media and drive traffic to relevant pages on a utility’s website. This creates a consistent customer experience across digital channels.

eNewsletters are also a more personal connection than other channels. When you reach inboxes on a smartphone — and more than 60% of utility newsletters are read on mobile devices — your message is going literally into customers’ hands. Plus, email is the most flexible channel. By segmenting your eNewsletter audience, you can deliver extremely relevant, targeted content that you know customers will be interested in.  

How do eNewsletters build engagement with customers versus a one-time email?

Utility newsletters are a consistent, reliable touchpoint between an energy provider and its customers. This is a chance for utilities to be part of customers’ lives on a regular basis by answering their questions, providing helpful advice and sharing interesting information.

Ultimately, this ongoing engagement builds trust and helps customers see their utility as a helpful resource. You simply cannot build that kind of relationship with a one-time email.  

What is the recommended utility newsletter cadence for maximum engagement?

We recommend a monthly schedule for utility newsletters. Our performance metrics have shown that this is “just right” — not too often, but not so infrequent that you lose the benefit of regular contact.

An eNewsletter builds engagement in part because of its regular cadence. Customers know to expect interesting content and useful advice from their utility, and they get in the habit of looking for it every month. In our experience, a bimonthly or quarterly newsletter schedule loses that benefit and delivers lower engagement. (See comparison chart below.)

Why do customers often see more value in eNewsletters compared to other types of campaigns, such as program promotions?

Advertisements are easy for customers to tune out. An unwanted promotional email is easy to delete. On the other hand, customers open eNewsletters because they want to read them — they look forward to receiving useful advice. Customers value their utility newsletters because the content interests them; it’s not just trying to sell them something.

What types of content should be included in a utility newsletter?

The best content helps improve customers’ lives. It may be energy efficiency advice that helps a customer save money, do-it-yourself tips that make a customer’s home more comfortable or educational content that helps a customer improve their energy use.

In terms of format, we recommend using a mix of text articles, videos, infographics and interactive games and quizzes. Some topics lend themselves to different formats better than others — say, because of the complexity or visual nature of the information. But more important, customers want to engage with content in a variety of ways. Sometimes they want to learn about energy through a fun quiz or watch an entertaining video. Other times, they need the visual detail of an infographic that breaks down a complicated topic.

Why is audience segmentation a valuable strategy for eNewsletters?

The goal of any content strategy is to build a long-term relationship with customers by providing content that is interesting and useful to them. Of course, not every customer is interested in the same things. If you can identify those differences, and provide specific content that meets those interests, you are more likely to increase engagement and build a strong connection with those customers.

A simple example, and one we recommend, is to create residential segments for homeowners and renters. Homeowners will be looking for energy efficiency advice that includes more elaborate renovation projects — such as insulation or HVAC replacement — where renters are more interested in efficiency measures that don’t require a large investment, like using LED lightbulbs or smart power strips.

To engage business customers, we recommend creating industry-based segments. For example, a retail shop, manufacturing plant and healthcare facility have wildly different energy needs. Through a segmented eNewsletter, we can deliver specific content to each industry. This is not only more useful to the customer, but it increases engagement and ultimately improves customer satisfaction.

A Look Back: Quarterly vs. Monthly Utility Newsletters

Since a majority of our utility partners now deploy monthly eNewsletters, 2017 is the most recent year we have metrics on monthly versus quarterly sends. In our Energy Utility Benchmarks Report, we looked at the average performance metrics across business audiences.

Based on this data, energy provuders were able to increase reach by 17 percentage points when sending utility newsletters monthly instead of quarterly.

Chart showing the performance of quarterly newsletters and monthly newsletters

Monthly newsletters perform better than quarterly newsletters across all categories. We continue to see that when communications become less frequent, customer engagement suffers.

Learn how Questline Digital’s utility newsletters can build engagement with your customers.

Learn More
Illustration of Energy Spotlight interview with Eugene Ayuyao

Energy Spotlight: Eugene Ayuyao

Eugene Ayuyao is a strong advocate for helping those in need. It’s no surprise, then, that her professional title at Southern California Edison (SCE) is Senior Manager of Income Qualified and Disadvantaged Communities Programs.

When speaking with Ayuyao, it’s clear that her passion runs deeper than just a job title. She believes in the cause and will do anything in her power to help create equal opportunities for all the low-income, underserved, diverse and vulnerable communities in the utility’s service area.

Ayuyao’s mission is to help these disadvantaged communities, ensuring they have the same access to technologies and assistance. She has a team of 30 individuals who implement new programs and help these customers in various capacities. “I’m really proud of every single program we manage and the work my team does day in and day out to serve our low-income customers,” she says.

Headshot of Eugene Ayuyao interview for Energy Spotlight

Ayuyao and her team work with 20 to 30 programs on average that make a positive impact to customers in need. “These programs are not just about energy efficiency and energy savings — they were created to really look at the health, comfort and safety of our customers,” Ayuyao says. Some of these programs include:

  • Energy savings assistance program: Customers who qualify as low-income can receive energy efficient appliances at no cost to them 
  • Critical care back-up battery program: Qualifying customers who live in a high fire risk area can receive a portable battery at no cost in case of loss of electricity during wildfires
  • Energy assistance fund program: This initiative offers grants to customers in difficult financial situations to help them pay their bills

As the utility industry continues to push forward with new technologies, Ayuyao is keen to remind the industry that there are still low-income customers who may not have access to such innovations. “As such, we partner with community based organizations who are typically well positioned to engage with the hardest to reach customers in our service area,” she notes. “Whenever we introduce new technologies, new initiatives…it is our responsibility that no one gets left behind.”

To assist in this endeavor, SCE currently offers its communications in 16 different languages. “There’s such a diverse community that we serve and we want to make sure every single one gets the help they need,” says Ayuyao.

Interestingly, if Ayuyao wasn’t in the energy industry, she would be following her family’s footsteps in the medical field. She laughs, saying that her parents, two brothers and sister-in-law are all physicians and boast about making a difference in people’s lives. Although she doesn’t disagree with that, she says, “They save lives, but being in this field of energy efficiency, I get to brag about saving the world.”

Outside of Ayuyao’s work, she likes to stay active and travel with her wife and two Pomeranians, Ash and Andi.

Questline Digital connected with Ayuyao to get her thoughts on changes in the industry, the evolution of energy and advice for those entering the utility space.

How did you get started in the energy utility industry?

Prior to joining SCE, I was involved in designing and developing new LED fixtures. This was the time when the technology was fairly new and most products in the market were either incandescent or CFLs. With this experience, I successfully landed a manager role at SCE and became responsible for implementation and oversight of their residential lighting programs.

Since then, my team’s coverage has expanded to other residential programs such as Energy Upgrade California Home Upgrades, Plug Load, Multifamily, New Construction and Behavioral Programs.

In 2016, I was given the opportunity to handle Commercial and Industrial Energy Efficiency contracts that focused on generating efficiency in various industries within our service area. In 2019, I was given another opportunity to manage SCE’s income-qualified programs, where I continued to deliver energy efficiency and bill assistance programs to the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach customers.

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

Technology has definitely played a big role in the change. We are seeing an increase in smart technologies with greater emphasis in addressing behavioral changes and more sustainable approaches to energy efficiency.

The social media evolution has also paved the way to reach more customers and get them engaged in learning about energy efficiency. Lastly, regulatory changes and the focus on clean energy is certainly redefining our strategy as an organization.

What campaign or initiative are you most proud of?

I’m most proud of our current income-qualified programs where we provide benefits to SCE’s long-term growth strategy and corporate responsibility through: 

  • Healthier and more resilient communities, saving energy and lowering bills for income-qualified customers, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities.
  • Ensuring access and deployment of electrification and modernized technologies to income-qualified customers, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities in support of achieving SCE’s and California’s aggressive clean energy goals in an equitable manner.
  • Developing strategic partnerships and supporting job creation that benefit income-qualified customers, disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. 

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

I don’t think this is original at all, but I would have wanted to have a referral base lead generation incentive program within the energy efficiency space. For example, campaigns focused on “Earn While Your Neighbor Saves” or “Earn a Buck to be Green.”

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

Government policies, political, environmental and social pressures all contribute to the challenges we face in the energy industry today.

Finish this sentence: If I weren’t working in program management, I would be…

I would probably be a doctor.

How do you anticipate the world of energy evolving in the coming years? What are you looking forward to?

There will definitely be a shift in the use of cleaner energy options to address the rising impact of climate change. Examples of these efforts include building and transportation electrification.

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

I highly recommend using a customer lens when making operational decisions.

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