Here’s an example of clear, customer-friendly messaging: it costs you $1.36 per year to charge your iPad. Note the simplicity and the customer-centeredness of the message. It doesn’t offer a range, and it doesn’t include a lot of qualifications about utility rates, iPad usage, or number of users in a household. It may—or may not—be accurate to the fourth decimal … Read More
PPL Electric Utilities Corp. is back on top, after last achieving the top utility honor in 2007. It has received past honors for both business and residential customer satisfaction. Over 100,000 customers were interviewed online, and PPL was ranked the highest in the eastern United States. PPL also operates Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas and Electric in the Midwest Region, … Read More
You may not recognize the name of Professor Nathaniel Burke. But I’m pretty sure you’ve seen him and know who he is. And that tells us a lot about the future of utility advertising. Prof. Burke is not a utility mascot. He doesn’t teach at an Ivy League university. And I’m pretty sure he knows no more about electricity or … Read More
A recent Washington Post article on the presidential race rekindled a long-simmering “shareholder vs. stakeholder” debate. How should profit-seeking businesses parcel out their time, energy, and money among competing constituencies like investors, employees, customers (including regulators), communities, suppliers and the like? Utility communicators, no less than presidential candidates, have decidedly different views about which group is the proverbial “first among … Read More
It’s not easy to talk about electric or gas service. Unlike consumer goods such as cars, homes or food, consumers can’t interact directly with electric or gas service: They can’t store it, they can’t give some of it to their friends, and it doesn’t really come in different colors. That’s why many utilities end up discussing their service in terms … Read More
Whatever utility communicators are selling these days, it doesn’t look like customers are buying. And we expect the problem will get worse before it gets better. A lot of utility communication plans are tied to rate cases, and utilities are filing a lot of rate cases these days. It looks like 100 or more rate cases will be filed across … Read More
Most utilities have always had a small percentage of disaffected customers. They write letters to the editor grousing about the duration of a recent outage. They criticize a utility’s tree-trimming practices. They oppose a proposed price increase. But yesterday’s cranky customer is becoming more of an activist today, participating in protests that are aimed at more fundamental utility business practices: … Read More
Will Poor Communications Destroy Xcel Energy’s Smart Grid Program? Some utilities are having trouble implementing Smart Grid or Smart Meter projects that rely on customers changing the way they use energy. Reaching customers and getting them to consider changing their behavior requires a long-term, integrated, campaign that includes customer communications, media relations, and public relations, among other tools. There are … Read More
DENVER, COLORADO–March 8, 2010–Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)–State and federal renewable electric standards (RES) cannot be met without the construction of new transmission lines to connect often remote renewable generation sources to far-off load centers, speakers told a wind and transmission workshop sponsored by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) (Washington, D.C.). Getting these … Read More
Industrial Info Resources SUGAR LAND–July 28, 2009–Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)–Successful carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects require extensive public outreach as much as rigorous engineering and sound economics, several speakers told a carbon sequestration conference in Houston last week. “Public outreach is a big deal [for CCS projects], it is a work process … Read More
