Uplight

The rising costs of goods and services are significantly impacting customers' wallets, leaving them with less discretionary income. Evergy is committed to assisting income-eligible customers by finding ways to help them save energy and money. The utility aimed to reach approximately 183,000 eligible Missouri households over a five-day period using its Offer Center, a feature of Evergy’s new online Marketplace. The challenge was to provide a frictionless and effortless customer experience to deliver free energy-saving products without the typical barriers such as requiring credit card information or upfront shipping costs.

PSEG Long Island’s Home Performance programs faced challenges in 2012 and were poised to fall short of peak electric savings goals. It was crucial to develop and identify quality customer opportunities for these programs in order to maintain production levels and achieve program and portfolio goals. By listening to contractors and making appropriate program changes, PSEG Long Island drove significant improvements in the Home Performance Direct (HPD) program.

For utilities, reaching low-to-moderate income (LMI) customers and encouraging them to visit energy utility Marketplaces are big challenges. These customers often don’t think their utility’s offers apply to them, especially if they are renters or live in multifamily homes. And, even when utilities are successful in getting these customers to visit a Marketplace, many don’t take action, prioritizing paying a utility bill over investing in a pricey smart thermostat. During a truly unprecedented year where more customers have more been impacted financially by the pandemic, every dollar saved on an energy bill counts. Some utilities have launched Giveaway Hubs in response to engage LMI customers, encourage them to visit utility Marketplaces, and enable them to add energy saving products to their homes. By providing these products at no-cost, these utilities are helping LMI customers save money while also promoting energy efficiency.

Every summer, Arizona Public Service (APS) faces the challenge of increased customer complaints due to high electricity bills caused by the desert heat. The spike in air conditioning usage leads to higher bills, resulting in a surge of complaints handled by the call center. In the summer of 2014, APS aimed to turn these unhappy customer calls into engagement opportunities. The goal was to educate customers on no-cost, low-cost, and behavioral changes to reduce high bills, thereby improving customer satisfaction and call resolution without negatively impacting call handle time.

In recent years, trade ally and customer expectations have risen while the utility’s cost-effectiveness tests have become more challenging to meet. It has become a strategic imperative for APS to invest in technology to enhance performance and scalability of the program. In 2012, the utility embarked on an effort to improve access to program data to better serve customers and other stakeholders, reduce manual processes to cut costs, and cut administrative overhead for trade allies that had been limiting their participation. Residential energy accounts for 21% of U.S. energy consumption and 60% of America’s housing stock was built before modern energy codes. Historically, most efficiency activities focused on new construction and single-measure improvement strategies. Administered by the DOE in conjunction with the EPA, HPwES takes a whole-house approach to address the opportunity for the greatest energy savings. Despite the enormous benefits of HPwES, the DOE has admitted, “it’s complicated.” There are a number of important stakeholders, including: the utility and its customers, auditors, contractors, QA, third-party evaluators, regulators, and others. Additionally, managing the complexity of consumer awareness, program workflow, financing, and appropriate incentives present challenges requiring innovative program solutions, like modern software, to help organize and simplify program implementation.

The period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is traditionally the peak shopping period for utility marketplaces. However, Uplight identified Earth Day as a new contender for high sales periods. In 2020, Uplight partnered with a Midwestern utility to offer free smart thermostats around Earth Day, driving sales and demand response program enrollments. Building on this success, Uplight expanded the promotion in 2021 to include twenty utility marketplaces, offering unique promotions tailored to each utility. The challenge was to replicate and scale the success of the initial promotion while ensuring maximum customer engagement and satisfaction.

Energy providers face significant challenges in encouraging customer enrollment in energy and bill-saving programs. Traditional methods often involve complex processes that deter customers from participating. Additionally, the need to meet decarbonization goals adds another layer of complexity. Utilities are looking for innovative ways to simplify the customer experience and increase participation in these programs. The challenge is to create a seamless, user-friendly interface that can bundle various offers and make them easily accessible to customers. This is particularly important for utilities like AES and Duke Energy, which aim to accelerate the transition to a cleaner energy future while ensuring customer satisfaction and cost savings.

As customers spent more time at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, utilities across the country faced spikes in residential demand, often seeing bill increases of up to 20% or more even before the cooling season started. During the crisis, Consumers Energy continued to prioritize helping their customers via their triple bottom line—committing to people, planet, and prosperity in all decisions. Many typical energy efficiency measures weren’t possible as either contractors weren’t allowed to go into people’s homes or people weren’t comfortable having them there. Consumers Energy needed an innovative approach to help customers save even more energy and money at such a critical time, while continuing progress towards their clean energy goals.

Jackson Electric Membership Corporation (Jackson EMC) aimed to improve member satisfaction by offering energy-saving products and services. They launched Uplight’s Marketplace in 2017 to provide instant rebates on smart thermostats and later expanded to include Level 2 EV chargers. The cooperative also wanted to drive additional sales through abandoned cart emails, which were initially sent 1 hour after a customer left the Marketplace. Jackson EMC is exploring future expansion of their Marketplace, including providing more information about equipment compatibility to add more value for their customers.

The advent of the digital economy has transformed the way customers shop, share information, and think about products and services. Many customers today, particularly younger ones, expect personalized communication through their preferred channels. Utilities need to offer intuitive and convenient digital experiences to retain high levels of customer satisfaction. ComEd aimed to transform into a 'utility of the future' by delivering innovative products and services to make customers' lives more convenient and provide them more control over their energy use.

APC aimed to increase load flexibility and encourage customers to shift energy usage from peak hours to economy pricing hours during summer and winter months. The challenge was to achieve this without compromising customer comfort, which is crucial for maintaining customer participation in the program. The existing Time of Use (TOU) demand response (DR) program needed enhancements to optimize load shift while ensuring customers remained comfortable and satisfied.

Implementing new rate plans to align demand with supply is becoming critical to more and more utilities. However, new rate plans for business and residential customers can result in customer confusion and frustration—whether they are opt-in or opt-out. According to J.D. Power, utility customer price satisfaction drops by 10% when defaulted onto a TOU rate. A TOU rate transition can be stressful for both utility employees and customers. It can seem that customer needs are at odds with regulatory and internal requirements. Thankfully, utilities have gained experience helping customers through rate transitions. This experience identified best practices of the three e’s: empathize, educate, and empower.

Washington Gas aimed to drive energy awareness and help customers take control of their energy usage in Maryland and Virginia. They offered various programs, including rebates on high-efficiency natural gas equipment and Home Energy Conservation Kits. The challenge was to increase awareness and enrollment in these programs. To achieve this, Washington Gas partnered with Uplight to launch the Online Home Energy Profile, an online survey tool that assessed home energy usage and provided personalized recommendations. The goal was to drive program enrollment and encourage customers to adopt energy-saving measures.

Duke Energy, the largest utility in the United States, faced the challenge of enhancing its Behavioral Energy Efficiency (BEE) program to better serve its 7.5 million customers across multiple states. The primary goals were to support Duke Energy's brand positioning as a Trusted Energy Advisor, help residential customers save money, increase customer satisfaction, cross-promote energy products and services, and positively contribute to Duke Energy's financials. The program needed to be scalable, engaging, and capable of delivering personalized energy-saving insights to a diverse customer base. Additionally, Duke Energy aimed to reduce the opt-out rate and ensure that the program's communications were effective and well-received by customers.