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Though they have always been customer-focused, electric utilities became even more proactive in the late 1980s and early 1990s by launching new marketing initiatives to expand their customer base and product offerings. By the end of the 1990s, however, many utilities downsized their marketing groups, new customer service systems shifted into maintenance mode, and, while the customer was still important, marketing was less so. Three primary reasons precipitated this decline: utility marketing was not aligned with the regulated utility model; results from utility marketing initiatives were often difficult to quantify; and utility marketing was not coordinated with a larger set of policy objectives. Today’s regulators have charged utilities with gaining marketplace acceptance of demand response (DR),energy efficiency (EE), and distributed energy (DE) initiatives—acceptance that is dependent on customer participation. Successful marketing will be key to gaining acceptance and participation from utility customers; however, utilities will have to tackle some new challenges if utility marketing is to be more successful this time around and able to deliver the required results.
Though they have always been customer-focused, electric utilities became even more proactive in the late 1980s and early 1990s by launching new marketing initiatives to expand their customer base and product offerings. By the end of the 1990s, however, many utilities downsized their marketing groups, new customer service systems shifted into maintenance mode, and, while the customer was still important, marketing was less so.
Three primary reasons precipitated this decline: utility marketing was not aligned with the regulated utility model; results from utility marketing initiatives were often difficult to quantify; and utility marketing was not coordinated with a larger set of policy objectives.
Today’s regulators have charged utilities with gaining marketplace acceptance of demand response (DR),energy efficiency (EE), and distributed energy (DE) initiatives—acceptance that is dependent on customer participation. Successful marketing will be key to gaining acceptance and participation from utility customers; however, utilities will have to tackle some new challenges if utility marketing is to be more successful this time around and able to deliver the required results.