Utility communicators: It’s time to bring your “A” game like never before. That’s because, across the country, utilities are raising prices like never before, to recover outlays for capital and maintenance projects. Someone’s got to break the news to customers and members. With any luck, you have enough experience, given recent years’ price increases, that you have developed some go-to key messages, communications tactics, and programmatic resources.
Today’s Challenge
A client, Industrial Info Resources, graciously let me query their database of industrial projects. The first chart (see below) is the result. If you hide the axes, you might be tempted to think that the far-left column is the stock price performance for the Magnificent Seven tech stocks over the last few years, and the other, smaller, columns are for consumer goods, financial services, energy and health care.
Source: Industrial Info Resources
Sorry, not the case. The data, drawn from that industry-leading source, shows what electricity providers in those states have already spent on capital and maintenance projects between the summer of 2020 and the summer of 2025. Money out the door, in other words. Possibly, some of those earlier outlays, circa 2020 and 2021, already have been recovered through higher prices. But there’s plenty more that needs to be recovered.
That means rate cases as far as the eye can see. And these are or will be coming at a time of great economic uncertainty and when fewer and fewer people trust what virtually any organization — their elected officials, the media, businesses, courts, colleges, their church, even their employers — tell them. Current social conditions make a hard job that much harder.
My point was underscored by a recent report from a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, PowerLines, which earlier this summer issued a report that electricity providers have sought, and in some cases received, a total of $29 billion in price increases through the first half of this year. That’s basically double what those organizations sought or received in the comparable year-earlier six-month period.
The map below from the PowerLines report, “Utility Bills Are Rising: Q2 2025 Update,” provides a different type of visual evidence of the generalized nature of this year’s electric provider price increase requests.
Source: PowerLines
If anything, the PowerLines report underestimated the dollar value of price increases sought and received for the first half of 2024 and 2025: The group’s tally excluded public power utilities and electric cooperatives. Although nearly all of those organizations are smaller than investor-owned utilities (IOUs), there are many, many more of them.
So, let’s agree this is a generalized problem. Perhaps the challenge is bigger for utility communicators in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona than their peers in other states, because of the dollar values attached to outlays in those states. Still, utility communicators in Rhode Island, Alaska, Vermont, and Puerto Rico are not off the hook just because those utilities made far smaller outlays than the “Big Boys.”
Communications Tip of the Month: For providers of electricity, gas, or water, price increases can be a crisis or an opportunity for communications. Try to take a more confident, proactive approach, treating your customers like adults. Show them how your capital investments help improve your services, including reliability, and create opportunities for them to save money in the long run.
Tomorrow’s Challenges
Today’s challenges won’t be going away any time soon. In fact, when I queried Industrial Info Resources’ database a second time, I wanted to know what electric providers planned to spend over the next five years on capital and maintenance projects. IIR doesn’t track planned spending by gas or water utilities, so the numbers it provided (see below) are a bare minimum of what providers of essential services will spend to deliver those services over the next five years.
Source: Industrial Info Resources
Some of the same states appear in both the “past” and “future” capital outlay charts. My recommendation to utility communicators is to scour the websites, press releases, customer newsletters, and social media of utilities in either list to see how they are speaking with their stakeholders about why they will be paying more for electricity, gas, or water. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel; instead, thoughtfully review what your peers are doing and find ways to use the essence of those communications into your plan.
Upcoming rate case communications could also drive a critical reexamination of your social media presence. Should you stay with Facebook? Is it finally time to post TikToks? Which demographic groups use which platforms? This overview from Questline Digital, using data from the Pew Research Center, can get you started.
Communications Strategies
I blog on price increase communications about once every 12-18 months. In a distillation of numerous posts, including some from before EEC was created in 2009, it seems there are two polar opposite schools of thought about when and how to tell your customers, members, and communities that the price they pay for your services (including gas and water) is going up:
- The Mushroom Treatment calls for keeping these stakeholders in the dark as long as possible, then feeding them the informational equivalent of … ummm… low-quality, carbon-rich, stinky, biodegradable materials. Yes, crap. When those who follow this approach finally do decide to inform their publics, often they go fast and heavy on facts and data: how long it’s been since their last price increase, how much the Consumer Price Index has risen since then, how much more the price of gasoline/eggs/bacon/beef have risen since their last price increase. Maybe there will be an allusion to a new power plant/pipeline/water treatment plant they built, which is providing essential services to you today. By and large, these providers play defense, mostly because they are comfortable at it, having done it for so long. I would say a majority of providers of electricity, gas, or water fall into this category.
- The Drip-Drip-Drip Approach: A minority favor a different approach: Talk about capital projects on an ongoing basis. Sure, those communications will include what you are building, why, and how much it costs. But the most important top-line message is how this investment will improve service to you: fewer power outages, safer gas pipelines, cleaner air, and better-tasting water. These organizations also don’t shy away from discussing maintenance projects regularly. “We’ll be in your neighborhood to trim your trees next week,” they’ll announce in advance. “We trim trees to prevent power outages.” The really smart organizations will give those tree-trimming crews a flier on trees and power lines. People love their trees and don’t want to see them hacked way back into unsightly blobs just so that tree trimmers don’t have to come back for another five years. These organizations see tree trimming as an opportunity to interact with those who pay their salaries, and they aspire to make that interaction as friendly and productive as possible. Whether it’s a utility’s arborists or a contract team, providing front-line people with easy-to-understand information about trees and power lines is almost a no brainer.
Price Increases: Crisis or Opportunity?
For providers of electricity, gas, or water, price increases can be a crisis, or an opportunity.
Those organizations that subscribe to the mushroom treatment, outlined above, will see a price increase as a crisis, or near-crisis. It’s certainly something they’d rather not talk about. They will do the bare minimum of communications because they think every time the organization speaks is an opportunity for it to get criticized. Typically, they approach it as a “win-lose” negotiation, trying to plead their case, if not overwhelm their publics, by relying on objective data and facts. In essence, they say, “It’s not our fault.”
More mature organizations, on the other hand, will take a more confident, proactive approach, discussing in an ongoing way the significant outlays they are making for capital or maintenance purposes as an ongoing part of their effort to improve the service they provide.
That includes programs to help customers or members use your service more efficiently, or pay for them on a levelized basis throughout the year. Could it be time to introduce new programs, or update your schedule of program incentives?
Sure, there will be a tiny, noisy percentage of your publics who seem to think the electricity, gas, or water you provide is a free good, even a human right. Understand that this loud 1% will probably have few followers among your customers or members. The broader audience understands no one gets gasoline for free, stays at Hyatt resorts on the house, or gets a free ride when it comes to clothes or entertainment. So don’t worry about the 1%! In fact, perhaps you can learn from them: if they produce clever TikToks, maybe that could spark something creative in-house that could inform your communications work.
Photo credits: iStock unless otherwise noted
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EEC Resources on Price Increase Communications
- Price Increases Call for a New Approach to Communications
- Sky-High Energy Bills: Utilities Need New Actions and a New Narrative
- Rate Case Communications: Why This Time It’s Different
- Utility Rate Case Communications: Do It Right
- Marketing Electric TOU Prices: The Time is Right
- Utility Communications: Don’t Play Word Games on Price Increases