, giving utilities a glimpse into how their customers really feel. With approval scores at an all-time low , business customers’ biggest qualms with utilities centered around rising electricity costs coupled with a lack of support when it comes to energy prices, power outages and infrastructure improvements.
As CEO of a technology provider within the energy industry, I am seeing a tremendous uptick in requests for proposals by utilities looking for third-party services and/or solutions geared toward small- and medium-sized businesses customers. Utilities are seeking better ways to support these customers, to both help them understand today’s evolving grid landscape and earn back trust that has been lost.SMBs have long been known as harder-to-reach customers, so while the latest J.D.
There’s also the added fact that personalization requires the utility to understand what each customer’s business type is with a high level of accuracy. Unfortunately, this can be challenging to garner and maintain in real time for many reasons. Businesses churn—what was a law office yesterday may be transformed into a hair salon tomorrow.
This timely usage information comes from meter data that utilities are already collecting on a daily or monthly basis. It captures how much energy was consumed and, in some cases, at what time. Analyzing this data by week, month and even year, utilities can build entire customer profiles and coach them on appliance-based usage, all based on observed trends and consumption patterns.