Proactively Engaging with Today's Consumer

The utility industry in the US is facing many challenges in the wake of the economic downturn. Customers, now more than ever, are experiencing economic hardship and are in many cases struggling to pay their utility bills. In order to deal effectively with this growing situation, utility companies must proactively engage with their customers by listening carefully to their concerns and providing community outreach, where possible.

Gary Avin, Supervisor of Customer Care at Florida-based LCEC, is a speaker at the marcus evans 2nd Annual Utility Customer Experience Management Conference, taking place in New Orleans, LA from January 25-26, 2011. He shares his opinion on the pressing concerns in this industry.

What are the key considerations for a utility company to remain nimble in today's business climate?

GA: It's realizing that here, especially in the region of the country that we are in, our customers are probably at a bigger disadvantage due to the economy and are facing economic hardship. In the utility industry it is very important to listen to what our customers are saying. Our customers are struggling in paying their current bills and a lot of the shift that we see now is to better prepare our customers to lower future bills. Right now we are looking at energy conservation programs and trying to find what appliances in the home are affecting their bills the greatest and educating our customers to lower those bills. The last thing that we want to do is have our customers be without power.

Even though we are not in a regulated industry here in Florida, as far as utility, it's very important to treat our customers as if they have a choice and they can go elsewhere. Once we have that mentality, we provide better customer service to our customers. In the long run we have a more satisfied customer who understands that we are here to help them lower future bills and offer assist agencies in the community if available.

What can be done in tough economic times to assist customers who are struggling to pay utility bills while protecting the company's bottom line?

GA: It goes back to offering agency assistance. We don't look at our customers' personal financial information. We know that a portion of our customer base is struggling and we want to be able to give them one location they can go to for help. Also, educating customers to lower future bills is important. In the long run this has probably lost revenue for the company where they're not selling as much kilowatts, but really it provides less collection activities and associated follow-up.

With the focus on reducing carbon footsteps, I think customers are looking at being more energy efficient. This shift has lead electrical companies and electrical industries to become more aware of our customers' needs to reduce their usage. There has been a significant increase in customers who have problems paying for utilities because of the recession. Southwest Florida is probably the second largest foreclosure market in the country. At one time it was the fastest growing city in America and within a four-year span we have seen a lot more of our customers in a situation where they can't pay bills. We see that there is a struggle to pay their bill, but encouraging customers to lower future bills is probably the biggest advantage we have right now.

How valuable is information extracted from social networks and message boards to a utility company and how can it be used to enhance customer experience?

GA: In the past if customers had a concern or a complaint they could either go to a state regulated commission or go to the news, which took time and caught us off guard. Now, with social media and the ability for customers to blog their concerns and share it, our PR department has alerts where we are quickly able to find and hear these concerns instead of waiting weeks and months. The social networking sites give us the opportunity to react quicker and for the possibility to get back to the customer. We have found that some of these customers have reached out to our customer service department and haven't gotten the answer they were looking for or received conflicting information. This in turn caused them to have their frustrations heard in another media outlet. Social media for companies is a great tool to use to help improve your business, but also to help listen to what the customers are saying and react to it much quicker.

What kind of energy efficient and conservation initiatives do customers expect today from utility organizations?

GA: Customers are more geared towards having real time information. In the past the utility customer would have to wait a month or wait until that bill comes at the end of the month in order to modify their behavior for future bills. Now we're giving customers the ability to see their current usage, so they can react quicker to lower their daily use. With information being available to customers more frequently, on a daily basis if not hourly in some companies, we're putting their energy usage back into the customers' hands. The ability for them to lower their bills is a great advantage to them. We have a campaign here to educate all our customers who are calling about a bill concern or a bill that they were not able to pay. We focus greatly on trying to reduce future bills by energy conservation and daily usage views, where a threshold for daily consumption is set. Customers are also looking for free energy advisors and home visits at times. We try to do as much as we can over the phone to educate our customers. An appliance change or just by increasing the temperature on the air-conditioning thermostat can help also during the summer months. Customers today are now more involved in web transactions and daily text messaging. The ability to provide quick, instant information is how our customer base is really changing.

The marcus evans 2nd Annual Utility Customer Experience Management Conference is taking place in New Orleans, LA from January 25-26, 2011.

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