Are you recommending the right products and services to your large business customers?

Utility-provided products and services can help large business customers reach their energy-savings goals and generate revenue for the utility. The products and services that most large business customers are interested in purchasing or participating in are:

Power monitoring
Preventive maintenance diagnostic services
Energy management control systems

Study methodology

The E Source Business Customer Satisfaction Study (formerly known as the Gap and Priority Benchmark) is a nationally recognized study of utility business customer satisfaction. It helps us determine the best utilities in business customer satisfaction and the top attributes that lead to high satisfaction. This study provides insights into your large business customers’ needs and where you’re succeeding and failing.

We fielded the 2019 study from April through May 2019. We allowed partially completed surveys when respondents answered all questions related to the utility and account reps. We surveyed large business customers on different topics, including satisfaction, value, attribute importance and performance, communication preferences, and program and product interest.

We surveyed more than 1,400 large business customers in 2019, and the benchmark results are based on the 14 utilities represented in the study that met the 10% margin of error at the 90% confidence-level requirement. For public content, E Source removes data points from figures.

However, according to our 2019 survey, outdoor lighting installation, energy management control systems, and backup generators are the products and services that large business customers most commonly purchase or participate in.

Fifty percent of large business customers are interested in power monitoring services offered through their utility, but only 33% of large business customers have participated in the offering (figure 1). Utilities need to figure out how to bridge the gap between interest and participation for other revenue-generating products and services.

Bar chart showing data from the 2019 Large Business Gap and Priority Benchmark. The chart shows business customer interest and participation in utility-provided products or services. Power monitoring, preventive maintenance diagnostic service, and energy management control systems are the three programs with the most interest. The three programs with the highest participation are energy management control sytems, outdoor lighting installation and maintenance and backup generators. Call us at 1-800-ESOURCE for more information. — About half of large business customers have participated in or purchased at least one utility-provided product or service from their utility. The rest of the respondents show a consistent interest in revenue-generating products and services compared to recent years (50% or above in 2017 and 2018).

You can improve participation rates in revenue-generating products and services by:

Empowering your account reps to provide customized recommendations for utility-provided products and services that match your customers’ interests.
Making the process easy for customers and starting with straightforward programs. Start with something simple, like lighting programs, to build customer confidence in your service and reliability. Then introduce more-detailed products and services, like power monitoring.
Using information learned from in-person account rep visits and improving communication and marketing efforts. This will help to build trust with the customer, strengthening your recommendations.
Using email marketing with actionable and timely information about products and services that are relevant to large business customers and are customizable to their needs.

You can help large business customers save energy and money and improve your relationship with them by offering products and services they want and customizing the offerings to your customers’ needs.

If you’re curious about the utility-provided revenue-generating products and services that small and midsize business customers are interested in, check out the data snapshot Give them what they want: SMB customers are interested in saving energy through their utility.

For more information about the Business Customer Satisfaction Study or this data, call us at 1-800-ESOURCE (1-800-376-8723) or email us.

Study methodology

Figure 1: Interest and participation in utility-provided revenue-generating products and services