Outages should be considered a key moment of truth (KMOT) for your customers. First, let me define KMOT. When it comes to serving customers, there are interactions that, depending on how well-planned and well-executed they are, can enhance brand loyalty or detract from it. These are called “key moments of truth,” and they can make or break a company’s relationship with its customers.

I believe that how you communicate about outages is one of those KMOTs. Having an integrated and proactive approach to outage communications and management will improve the customer experience and help build trust (and trust is the first step toward customer loyalty).

In our 2012 E Source Utility Brand Strength Study, customers rated nine utility attributes, including communication effectiveness and reliability. On a 100-point scale, the overall average ratings for communication effectiveness and reliability were 61 and 80, respectively. Our research revealed that, in an era of rapidly proliferating communications technologies and channels, preferences for channels are likewise evolving, and utilities may need to do more to keep up with these changes.

Recently, I asked our staff at E Source headquarters why they love going to the E Source Forum each year. The Forum is our premiere annual event, bringing together utility professionals from across North America, and it always seems to bring out the best in our employees.

I didn’t want each person to dwell on their answer, so I asked everyone to give his or her first reaction in 10 words or less. The answers were indeed interesting and entertaining. Watch the video to find out what everyone here at E Source has to say about the Forum!

Come drink from the fire hose and join us in Denver this October. We look forward to seeing you!

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are now a ubiquitous part of modern life. OLEDs are flat light sources that can display different colors, unlike the single-point, monochromatic light source of a traditional LED. I’ve got an OLED in my pocket right now in the form of my phone display screen. In addition to phone display screens, OLED digital photo frames and even TVs have begun to appear on the market. Because they provide unlimited viewing angles, high-quality color, and good contrast as well as being lightweight with a thin profile, we’ll undoubtedly see OLEDs continue to proliferate. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of OLEDs is their physical flexibility, as Sony demonstrates in this video:

Cell phone displays and photo frames might seem like minor niches, but I think OLEDs have the potential to completely revolutionize our traditional notions of lighting technology. Like its cousin, traditional LED technology, OLEDs have been increasing in efficiency over the years while prices have been dropping. In fact, sheets of OLEDs are starting to be used for general illumination.

This year at LightFair, we spotted one recently commercialized ...

Lately I’ve been talking to a lot of folks in the electric utility industry about emerging drivers that could really change the landscape—cheap natural gas (and plenty of it), dropping prices on renewables like photovoltaics (PV), and proven distributed generation technologies such as combined heat and power (CHP). The monopoly position of utilities is looking more at risk than ever before.

Think about it: Why shouldn’t large end users be locking in a supply of natural gas, installing PV on their roof, and using CHP to get themselves off the grid? We have some very high prices for electricity in different regions of the country, such as California and New England. For an increasingly growing number of end users, the economics of self-generation are going to be extremely attractive. And policymakers in some areas are pushing for a lot more DG. California Governor Jerry Brown has challenged the market players in his state to bring 12,000 megawatts (MW) of distributed generation online as part of the 20,000 MW of renewables the state’s utilities are required to deploy by 2020.

What does this mean for a traditional electric utility?

Richard Crowther is a really hungry guy. He’s the sustainable energy manager for Coca-Cola in North America. He has directed hundreds of energy-efficiency and distributed generation (DG) projects in Coca-Cola facilities, and he wants to do hundreds more. We were chatting at the 19th Annual E Source Energy Managers’ Roundtable last month, and he told me that he has no shortage of cost-effective candidate projects. But many of them never happen because of limits on the amount of capital funding available through his company. This is a constraint faced by all energy managers. Crowther thinks utilities could be part of the solution.

“If I could make these projects hit our books as true operating expenses rather than capital expenses, I could open the spigot and do far more projects,” Crowther told me. He’s looking for a fundamentally different relationship with utilities than the standard model in which the customer pays for and owns the project and uses utility rebates to sweeten the economics. “Why can’t the utility own the project and charge me for it as a line item on my energy bill?” he asks. “I’m happy for ...

Chuck’s biggest claim to fame around E Source (besides being part of our amazing sales team) is his involvement with switch~—an opportunity for energy change-makers to present leading-edge ideas. Each speaker has just five minutes to present on a topic of their choice, with the goal of inspiring their audience. It’s such a cool idea! Chuck is also an avid adventurer, riding his bike every chance he gets and taking part in multiday trekking challenges.

Nickname: Ray Charles

Hometown: Kerrville, Texas

What you do at E Source: I’m a director of business development.

Why you like working at E Source: We’ve got great people and real life flexibility, all while making a positive impact on the world. Oh, and I get to wear flip-flops to work.

Something most people don’t know about you: My secret talent is interior design!

Check out this video of Chuck to learn more:

Customer satisfaction holds a high level of importance in our industry, but is it really the one metric we should hold as the holy grail? I’m not convinced it is.

I think that customer satisfaction is a requirement of doing business, and it’s a lagging indicator of how well a utility is designing and implementing the customer experience. Customer satisfaction is table stakes, and satisfying our customers is simply a good first step when it comes to delivering the optimal customer experience. Customers crave differentiated and personalized experiences that evoke positive emotions when dealing with service providers. Satisfactory service will not still emotions and will deliver a neutral impact on brand loyalty; wow experiences, on the other hand, will evoke emotions and lead to positive impacts on brand loyalty.

Customer satisfaction is just one of the many data points that need to be considered in the overall customer experience. Satisfaction alone doesn’t lead to trust, and trust is the first step in developing loyalty. Improved customer satisfaction can only be derived from well-planned and well-executed customer experiences.

I want to continue the discussion on call center metrics that I started in the March Customer Experience Newsletter. Call centers are using all sorts of metrics: average handle time (AHT), average speed of answer, first-call resolution (FCR), abandoned-call rate, adherence to schedule, service level (percentage of calls answered within a certain amount of time), and others. These metrics haven’t varied much since I was a call center supervisor 20 years ago, but customer expectations have increased exponentially.

Do these metrics really measure what your customers are interested in? Will they drive a superior customer experience? I would venture to say no, with the exception of FCR. When we surveyed 1,000 residential customers on their experiences, expectations, and preference when dealing with their energy provider, 69 percent of the respondents strongly agreed that having their problem resolved immediately matters most. That’s what your customers want when they contact your utility. They’re calling you because they have an issue they want solved or a transaction they want to complete. So is having a metric that measures how long a customer service ...

Earlier this year, senior research associate Sarah Fiebiger and associate research director Florence Connally conducted the 2012 E-Business Metrics Survey. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s an annual survey for the utility industry that provides definitions for common online activities and gathers critical benchmarking data. It’s a detailed endeavor with loads of questions, but the invested time always proves to be a valuable exercise. This year, we received data from 52 North American utilities and uncovered some fascinating findings. I highly recommend checking out the archive of last month’s web conference for members of the E Source E-Channel Service, where Sarah and Flo summarized the findings. Stay tuned for their written analysis, which is on its way soon.

This year’s survey featured new questions on payment arrangements, online activity (including mobile), and online transactions, in addition to existing questions about paperless billing, payments, and moving. I want to share a few of the findings because the data are insightful and should help you gauge where you are with aspects of your ...

With a seemingly endless number of energy-efficiency conferences out there, it can be tough to find fresh sessions with stimulating new content. If you’ve got that “same old, same old” feeling about efficiency conferences, then you need to come to the DSM sessions at the E Source Forum!

We’re in the midst of putting together some awesome sessions, with thought-provoking content discussed in unique formats. For example, we’re hosting an interactive workshop focusing on DSM program design best practices and benchmarking. This workshop will help better inform DSM program design to make more-effective programs and it will provide you with great new ideas to bring back to your utility after the conference. Working with your peers to problem-solve will get your brain cranking far better than trying to stay awake while someone drones on about their CFL free-ridership numbers!

The 25th Annual E Source Forum will be held October 2–5, 2012, in lovely downtown Denver, Colorado. Start making your pitch to your boss to attend!