The world is changing and people’s behaviour and expectations are changing with it. Is a standard statement that says something like, ‘832 units used’ that arrives every 3 months a satisfactory relationship for an energy company to have with its customers?
It’s a rhetorical question, but behind it is the reality of energy consumers switching suppliers, becoming increasingly eco-aware, requiring information about the house and its energy efficiency and an increasing fashion for frugality.
Here lies an opportunity, one that will see the most forward thinking companies anticipating a future where electricity, gas or water customers’ desires and expectations are not dissimilar to consumers who have a relationship with a large national retail brand - companies with national coverage and a multitude of touch points with their customers.
So, smart metering is not just about a 21st century device that can measure and report your energy use at 1 second or 30 minute intervals, or the wireless network that will help record this data and make it available in the cloud. It’s as much about creating an engaging and enduring customer relationship.
For the customer there are opportunities to spend less for the same service through changes in energy behaviour. Off-peak tariffs and energy use at night for high consuming devices like dishwashers will also mean cost efficiencies and greener energy production for the utility companies – energy is cheaper to generate on demand at night.
To be part of this behaviour change, energy companies will become more truly customer-centric. A straight loyalty program may not work, but notions of loyalty and customer service and innovations would be strong differentiators when mixed with other strategies. Strategies that will also help the energy company become more than just an energy supplier. Such a proposition lies in engaging customers through a sense of belonging and notions of community. Consumers are seen to be evolving over a longer period from notions of status symbols where ‘bigger is better’ to a more giving status of sharing and caring.
We are evolving concepts of loyalty and community which we are code-naming ‘green points’. A continuing relationship with a supplier will create some kind of rating that can either be redeemed or traded. From the suppliers point of view it fits strategies to decrease churn or switching between energy suppliers. The supplier also becomes more than a commodity trader when communities are built around notions of energy use compared to similar households or regional comparisons, personalised energy and green advice.
In the UK, equipping households with smart meters by 2020 is becoming mandatory. There is a wider directive that this program must include smart meters with a “customer interface”. The household meter can come out from the meter cupboard or its obscure hiding place under the stairs and take its place in the house and living experience. We see consumer devices with compelling and desirable touch interfaces. Linking to customer engagement, these will be playful, entertaining and will converge with other household digital experiences. A connected touch panel in the house could have many modes – entertainment, shopping, health, as well as a way to manage efficient energy use – to become greener, to be more cost effective, to schedule charging the electric car.
EMC Consulting has partnered with Microsoft in a customer focussed smart metering program. We’ve been considering and designing all things from customer engagement and benefit scenarios, to open standards and protocols for a cloud based and wireless solution, to the consumer interface and modes of use.
We’ve considered the drivers for customer engagement as they walk past the touch panel in their home. Smart meters can make measurements every second, so we have a real-time display. How much is it costing me right now? How am I doing? What does my usage mean? The interface has ‘let me know’ type features – Where is my energy consumption higher that it needs to be? Which rooms? Which devices? Where can I save, where could I be greener?
The interface itself is touch based. To be precise, the home interface is touch based WPF, running in a Windows 7 environment, although it could be embedded. Its web counterpart is Silverlight. We used natural gestures to design the user interactions. The rationale is that an engaging experience is the home is relatively bold, not as detailed as a web page.
We also propose a multi-channel approach. In the home a connected touch device has your energy use as a ‘right now’ type experience with features to attract discovery and encourage energy behaviour changes. A web interface has a similar experience but with a deeper ‘research’ element around energy advice. Both interfaces have touch points with retailing as the suppliers become more than simply gas or electricity brokers. There is also a mobile interface which also includes control scenarios for the home.
So, as an energy and utility company the opportunity exists to evolve the consumer relationship and to embrace the technology as other customer-centric brands with national coverage become interested in the space. Embracing change in energy consumers’ behaviour is also key; as desires and expectations are changing, so rewards for energy efficiency and eco-awareness materialise.
Julian A D Harris | EMC Consulting | EMC Conchango