Avista Boosts Customer Engagement by 74% with Automated Furnace Filter Reminder Program

Challenge

Avista Utilities sought to manage its contact lists and seamlessly enroll customers into its furnace filter reminder program.

Solution

To make the process as easy as possible, Questline Digital built an automated program campaign that simplified sending furnace filter reminder emails to Avista’s residential customers. Questline Digital developed a landing page on the energy utility’s website where customers could sign up to receive a welcome email with program details. This email instantly enrolled customers to automatically receive furnace filter reminders every three months.

Results

The automated program’s simplicity resulted in impressive open rates and click-through rates. Questline Digital tracked all emails sent to subscribers before and after their initial touchpoints and found that overall open rates increased by 28.2% after engaging with the program. Engagement with various Avista communications also rose 74% among subscribers.

About Avista Utilities

Avista provides energy services and electricity to 360,000 customers and natural gas to 321,000 customers in a service territory that covers 30,000 square miles of eastern Washington, northern Idaho and parts of southern and eastern Oregon.

Customers who interacted with the furnace filter reminder program are now 74% more likely to engage with other Avista emails.

“The program is ongoing, and Avista continues to achieve its goals. This is a great personalized service…that automatically reminds participants to change their furnace filters. If customers take action on this positive reminder, it results in clean air, improvements to furnace efficiency and life expectancy, while allowing them to keep their maintenance costs down.”
—Mary Tyrie, Communications Manager, Avista Utilities