5 tips for creating an effective high-bill alert program

Key takeaways

  • Use social media and other marketing tools to let your customers know about your high-bill alert program and how they can enroll.
  • Make self-service enrollment easy by using a preference center.
  • Let customers decide how they receive alerts and the bill amount that triggers an alert.
  • Supplement alerts with advice on how to save energy and where to get help when bills are too high.

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Announcing the winners of the E Source 2022 Utility Ad Awards Contest

Today E Source recognized the winners of the 14th annual Utility Ad Awards Contest. During a special session at the E Source Forum 2022, the winning utilities displayed their impressive results related brand awareness, website traffic, and program participation, and shared their innovative designs.

8 storytelling frameworks for utilities

Key takeaways

  • When you present your utility and its offerings in a story, you can engage your customers and help them better remember your offerings.
  • Your utility’s stories should entertain and describe. Storytelling is most effective when the reader can picture a story fully and see themselves in it.
  • Your story should also be believable and relatable. Customers must believe that your product or program will help them before they commit to it.

Use the 6 Es framework to improve the employee experience

Key takeaways

  • Communicate information to employees promptly.
  • Use surveys or employee councils to better understand employees’ needs and what’s getting in their way.
  • Involve employees in designing and implementing solutions to improve the customer experience (CX).
  • Make sure everyone has a shared understanding of expectations. Design policies that make it easier for employees to deliver the desired customer experience.

Forging a path to a brighter energy future for all

Energy equity continues to be the priority for many in the utility industry. And with so many underserved customers and communities remaining in our energy system, we don’t expect these important efforts to lose momentum.

It’s going to be a long road ahead to achieve energy equity—the utility industry largely lacks clear, agreed-upon definitions of equity goals, metrics, and end results. But utilities are making progress and the results will be well worth it.

The quilt for a better tomorrow: A metaphor for the Sustainable Utility

Key takeaways

  • Like the art of quilting, the Sustainable Utility requires the input, talents, and cooperation of a group of unique people.
  • Utilities should approach their vision for a sustainable energy future like a group of quilters would.
  • The most important parts of your plan should be the people in your community; a stellar customer experience; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) pillars; and diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI). Without these, your quilt is just a flimsy blanket.

Large business customers desire energy reliability, trustworthiness, and effective emergency communications

E Source is pleased to announce the results of the E Source 2022 Business Customer Satisfaction Study. The company surveyed large business customers to discover the utility attributes they value most as well as where their utility ranks on those attributes. The survey uses a 10-point scale, where 1 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest. Among nine attributes, large business customers selected three as most important for a utility to possess:

How to make your utility programs more equitable

Key takeaways

  • You can’t create equity without first defining it in your programs.
  • Don’t just collect demographic data; use it to improve equity.
  • Bring in partners from the community when you’re designing programs.

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Create a definition of equity for your programs

Find a way to collect—and use—demographic data

Small and midsize business customers desire energy reliability and trustworthiness

E Source is thrilled to announce the results of the E Source 2021 Business Customer Satisfaction Study. The company surveyed small and midsize business (SMB) customers to discover the utility attributes they value most as well as where their utility ranks on those attributes. The survey uses a 10-point scale, where 1 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest. Among seven attributes, SMB customers selected four as most important for a utility to possess:

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