UTILITY MARKETING
Marketing In Energy
Utility Companies: Why
Customer Engagement
Is More Important Than
Ever
By Jonah Owade
B
y way of basic understanding,
The Chartered Institute of
Marketing defines Marketing as
the management process responsible for
identifying, anticipating and satisfying
customer requirements profitably. This
will be the guide in this storyline on
utility marketing.
Introduction
New expectations and new possibilities
are combining to shift the wider strategic
context and the customer context in which
power utility companies operate. These
are coming from a number of different
directions. Regulatory expectations are
changing, with far-reaching energy
transformation policies in some countries
and significant momentum gathering in
others.
Business models are changing and
becoming
more
customer-centric
and reliant on customer interactivity.
Customer expectations are changing as
more and more the immediacy, ease and
control of wider online digital retailing
sets the standard. And all these changes
are being underpinned by technological
innovation that is transforming people’s
power choices and the way the energy
system can be managed. (Adapted from
PWC report) customers are wanting to get the benefit
of better solutions for energy control and
communications.
Disruption is putting
customer-relevance center-
stage Successful companies will frame their
‘go-to-market’ strategies based on
market foresight rather than simple
backward facing insight. They will be
adept at converting market knowledge
and intuition into strategies that signal a
differentiable customer experience, as well
as produce enhanced revenue streams and
an expanded customer relationship.
The combination of policy, technological
and customer change is leading to
disruption of the traditional power
utility business model. In some parts of
the world, disruption is already taking a
strong hold.
Large
commercial
and
industrial
While companies are placing more empha-
sis on building their data capabilities, there
is the recognition that these efforts are only
scratching the surface of the opportunities
at hand. Experience shows that any com-
pany that puts technology first and brand
second isn’t likely to sustain growth. While
people may enjoy the experience, they ar-
en’t necessarily connecting with the compa-
ny on the deeper level that contributes to
building long-term loyalty.
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In this new environment, power utilities
have to successfully shift customers’
perceptions so that they are seen as active
partners and providers of services and
solutions, not just as commodity energy
suppliers.
Great customer experience is a way of
life not a department or tactic tagged
away in some corner. A case in point is
the construction of the Rabai 90Mva
substation and the Supply line to
Mombasa Cement Company at the
coast. The successful completion of this
project by the well qualified, skilled and
motivated Kenya Power team has been a
game changer in the region in terms of
customer experience for outages, quality,
and reliability of supply.
The combination of Product guaranteed
delivery (Infrastructure, project delivery
Network, Billing, Reading, and Revenue
Collection) and customer communication/
engagement is sure to improve customer
experience when the whole organization
becomes customer centric.
As Cindy Kroon Vice President Customers