Why new home owners are more likely to engage in EE!
Furniture, Paint and ... Insulation?
WRITTEN BY team energyx ∙ TORONTO, ONTARIO
The bottom line: The customer’s relationship with their utility providers is changing. According to Deloitte’s Utility 2.0 Survey in 2017, to deal with changes to the traditional utility model utility providers need to become more customer-centric , their customers are no longer satisfied with simply receiving a one-way power flow with little to no communication from their utility.
Customers want more knowledge and control over their energy use. They expected a seamless, efficient and personalized interaction. This includes the process by which they are recommended home retrofit upgrades. From incentive recommendations to home energy reports, the same old, cookie-cutter paper deliveries are not going to work.
Encouraging homeowners to make home energy retrofits when they aren't thinking about their benefits is difficult.
The question is: "When are people thinking about energy efficiency?".
The answer? When they are moving into a new home.
“While renovating the kitchen and updating the bathrooms are both great improvements that can increase property value, making energy efficient upgrades will give you more bang for your buck.”
— SACHA FERRANDI, FOUNDER OF SOURCE CAPITAL FUNDING, INC. A REAL ESTATE FINANCE COMPANY
In fact, USA Today rates “Getting energy efficient appliances” as the number one upgrade you can make to increase the value of your home. These days, homeowners are increasingly aware that HVAC, water heaters and window upgrades are cost-effective changes that provide a solid ROI when it comes time to move or sell.
A study performed by SECC found the following stats about consumers and their relationship with their energy provider:
61% were interested in programs that help them save money by using home appliances at different times of the day
57% were interested in programs to identify opportunities to save money by upgrading to energy efficient products
78% said they trust their utility and are more likely to participate in a program or purchase a product if their utility recommended it
In other words, Mr. Utility, your customers are ready to make home retrofits and are relying on you to tell them how!
Despite this interest, this is an issue for utilities. Even if people are willing to make energy efficient upgrades, this does not eliminate the big problem of free ridership rate among their customer base. Free ridership, is the degree to which energy efficiency program participants take incentives for projects which would have been done with or without the program.
Getting more program participation while reducing free ridership rate - each on their own are both issues that the utility world has not seemed to figure out yet. Of course, for some states, there’s less of an emphasis on free ridership, but the fact remains that utilities must get their customers to participate in energy efficiency programs.
So, how can utilities get more people to make energy efficient retrofits, while actually showing that they influenced those decisions?
Answer: By targeting homeowners who are likely to move into a home! Why? Because that’s when they are thinking about making a home retrofit!
These homeowners are the perfect candidates for EE programming. Why? They recently bought a new house, and want to ensure their new asset is as valuable as possible. Their family is moving in, and they want to sure its comfort and livability.
A disgruntled homeowner who's used to what they're living in? Not happy when you tell them about a $2,500 HVAC incentive.
A new homeowner who's told about a free Smart Thermostat? They'll be thanking you because that could reduce their energy bills!
There are a plethora of ways utility program managers may be able to do this, and some of them are listed below:
Digital Marketing: Online platforms such as Facebook and Google allow you to show your ads to specific people who are in your likely range of people who want to move. With Facebook, you can actually use Interest targeting and ask Facebook to show your ads to people who are most likely to be moving. The ad might say something like, “Selling your home or moving? Learn how a new HVAC can increase your home property value by XX%! A message like this would really resonate with the homeowner who is moving or selling their home.
Surveys and Direct Mail: Want an easy way to figure out what your customers are doing? Ask them! Short online surveys (done via SurveyMonkey), or paper mail ones are an easy, effective way of figuring out which of your customers are moving, or not. You know that any customers that identify that they may be thinking of moving would likely be interested in energy efficiency retrofits. Therefore, these individuals would be great candidates for marketing efforts down the line. The drawback of this method? It is rather time-consuming, low-tech and sometimes, people just don’t want to be bothered.
Implementing New-Age Software-As-a-Service (SaaS) Products: SaaS. It's not as complicated as it sounds. People have long dismissed utility engagement tactics as dated and low-tech, but that is simply no longer the case. Technology solutions now exist that are able to take data science and AI and integrate them with online platforms to identify homes that are ripe for participation. The technology exists where people will now be able to target homeowners who are most likely to enrol and when they want to enrol. If there were a way utilities could deliver Home Energy Reports right when a homeowner moved into a new home, that would be game-changing.
Utility program managers can now look like geniuses - people are participating because of them, and they can easily track why and how.
It's time to flip the script on utility customer engagement for energy efficiency programs.
Sending customers 50-page unwanted home energy reports? There's no need.
Dealing with contractors for complicated home audits? Forget about that. Wasting marketing and customer care budget on campaigns that won't work? Those days are over.
Giving customers personalized recommendations right when they need it? Sign them, and us, up.