The E Source Omnichannel Survey assesses the omnichannel efforts of the utility industry across eight customer-facing channels:

• Website (desktop, laptop, and mobile)
• Mobile app
• Email
• Text messaging
• Online chat
• Phone—IVR
• Phone—live agent
• Social media

From a residential customer perspective, we look at:

Ever since Thomas Edison’s incandescent lamp became commercially available more than a century ago, technological advances and federal regulations have shaped lighting’s path. Our infographic shows you the journey of lighting technology, including major milestones—such as the development of LEDs, lighting’s first appearance in demand-side management portfolios, and federal efficiency standards. We also explain the current state of the lighting market and where it’s headed in the future.

Every new technology must cross the “chasm of death”—the high-risk, precommercial phase of market adoption where costs are high and value is uncertain—before it can take off and penetrate the market at scale. Utilities test and promote emerging technologies, but these efforts often only address technical and market potential, not market development.

Through E Source’s recent residential ethnographic research for “E Design 2020”, we identified discrepancies between the bills utilities send to their customers and the information customers want. Most bill redesigns focus on making it clear how much customers owe, reformatting for readability, adding elements of interest such as recent bill amounts and comparisons, and describing line items on the bill. But that’s not always enough.

Electric and gas utilities have significantly increased demand-side management (DSM) program spending in the past decade. Based on market data found in DSM Insights—our tool containing data on DSM program goals, budgets, spending, and savings from DSM regulatory filings—we’ll see DSM spending level off in 2020, with a number of notable pockets of big increases and decreases in spending, netting out in a slight decline.

At E Source Forum 2017, Todd Lazurca, manager of communication services at SaskPower, talked about blending analog and digital content to create experiences for customers. According to him, “experiences are the foundation of our lives—and they’re the foundation of the conversations that we have.” Those conversations have helped SaskPower generate word of mouth among its customers and encourage them to embrace shared experiences within their community. Lazurca explains:

Q:Should we start accepting cryptocurrency for customer bill payment?

A:We don’t recommend utilities add an option for customers to pay with cryptocurrency because it wouldn’t solve a problem for your customers or improve their experience.

Cryptocurrency isn’t enabled for small, quick payments. Transaction costs are high, and few businesses accept this type of payment. And cryptocurrency’s value can fluctuate, making users wary of spending the currency.

Thank you for your nominations! E Source is pleased to announce that Anne Pramaggiore, senior executive vice president and CEO of Exelon Utilities, is the recipient of the 2019 Jim Rogers Innovation Award.

What are utilities doing to plan for the wants and needs of their future customers? To help answer this question, E Source is holding its annual Executive Roundtable for Customer Innovation in Boston on April 16, 2019. This meeting for the executive leadership of utilities’ customer-facing departments provides participants with the opportunity to hold frank, closed-door discussions with their peers.

Did you know that US households, on average, pay about 13 bills per month? And because e-billing is growing as a billing and payment option, consumers have more online accounts, cards, alerts, and notices to track than ever before. And when you consider the paper bills many customers still receive, you’re seeing a web of channels, choices, and options customers can choose from to make payments.