Utilities have every reason to want their customers to adopt more digital habits when it comes to their accounts. From operational efficiency to customer satisfaction scores, with more digital interaction, there are greater rewards for everyone involved. Now more than ever, utilities must take a creative and consistent approach to engage their customers and improve relationships.
As utilities struggle with lagging customer satisfaction scores, socio-economic uncertainty, and financial pressure on a global scale, customers are paying more for their energy usage. In turn, they are expecting more as a result. Smart utilities are encouraging their customers to take more ownership over their energy services, while making it easy for them to do it. As more customers engage directly with their utilities, satisfaction scores rise, the need for customer support goes down, and operational costs come down, too.
Online bill pay programs are an easy, effective way for utilities to communicate with customers and gain knowledge and insight into their habits, consumption, and associated costs. This small behavior change is simple to implement and maintain, and it opens doors to high usage alerts, bill predictions, and other touchpoints that help improve customer satisfaction.
Doer/Maker engaged with Pepco Holdings (PHI) to support their efforts to create operational and consumer efficiency across all touchpoints, including energy efficiency, billing,and customer engagement. Our remit was to drive residential consumer participation in Autopay and eBill programs for Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power, and Pepco through a variety of paid and owned digital channels.
We overcame two challenges in order to succeed. First, we had to help consumers overcome their reluctance to spend any more time than they already were interfacing with their energy supplier. Nationwide, the average amount of time people spend thinking about their utility is roughly the time it takes to open a paper bill and see what their charges are. Second, we had to position PHI’s digital tools as ones to embrace and utilize, rather than fear or resist.Â
The mandate became clear—educate, but with a distinctly human tone.
The campaign we developed together was highly informative, sharing numerous reasons for consumers to start using eBill. But the magic of the campaign happened when those benefits were combined with powerful imagery and a clever, self-aware voice that really spoke to consumers in a way that inspired action.
PHI had more than 55,000 new people sign up for eBill, which represented a 132% positive ROI. In certain channels, the work performed at levels 2 or 3 times above industry benchmark. For a campaign that grappled with web code freezes, timing challenges, issues with propensity model data, and the seismic outbreak of a global pandemic, the results were extraordinary. The full campaign can be seen here, along with sample creative content and additional performance metrics.
As utilities work harder to engage with their customers more frequently and more authentically, developing and adopting digital tools remains a proven means to that end. Coupled with an integrated marketing campaign that reflects both insight and empathy, this was a powerful and motivational combination. And as consumers get to know more about their energy usage and trust their utilities do in fact want to help bring costs down, the potential for progress is real.