Benchmarking DSM Savings as a Percentage of Utility Sales

Using data from E Source DSM Insights—our tool containing data on demand-side management (DSM) program goals, budgets, spending, and savings from DSM regulatory filings—we analyzed average portfolio savings as a percentage of sales. Check out this infographic to see which utilities have achieved average annual energy savings of at least 2% and which utilities are on track to meet this goal over 10 consecutive years.

What are best practices for developing customer personas?

Q:How popular are personas, and what are some best practices for developing them?

A:Customer personas have gained traction among utilities. According to the E Source Customer Experience Survey, more than half of surveyed utility respondents have developed personas (figure 1), but most use them in narrow applications.

How do you prepare your contact center for solar and electric vehicle demand?

Q:What utility contact center best practices can you implement to reduce calls and better support customers during the anticipated growth of solar and electric vehicle (EV) demand?

A:Here are some of our recommendations to help prepare your contact center for a projected increase in customer demand for solar and electric vehicle products, programs, and services.

Answering questions about high bills

Key takeaways

  • Many customers who call in about high bills are confused, anxious, or angry. Listen to customers and find out what they’re most worried about.
  • Determine whether the customer’s meter reading was estimated or actual. Check their bill for errors in reporting.
  • Look for causes of high energy use beyond seasonal changes, such as new appliances, malfunctioning appliances, or more people in the home.

Does anyone allow outage reporting via location-enabled mobile devices?

Q:Are any utilities allowing customers to share their location on a mobile device to report a power outage?

A:We’re not aware of any utilities that offer location-enabled outage reporting, but many organizations outside the energy industry allow customers to share their location on a mobile app to complete a task.

What’s the best way to design a mobile login page?

Q:How do utilities design their My Account login pages for mobile-friendly devices? What does E Source consider a design best practice?

A:We surveyed 114 utility websites for our 2017 Review of North American Electric and Gas Company Residential Websites and learned how the top-quartile utilities (based on overall performance) link to their mobile login module for online account access. Of those 28 utilities, we found that:

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