- What makes CHARGE a valuable platform for Escalent, and how does it align with your approach to energy market insights and consulting?
We’ve long believed that brand is a crucial but often overlooked part of energy companies’ businesses. And we think that brand has become even more important in today’s environment. For instance, we’ve found that the vast majority of electric vehicle (EV) buyers don’t contact their electric provider during or even after their car-buying process. As a result, these customers miss out on programs that can help them have a better experience as an EV owner and electric providers miss out on the ability to tap into a valuable energy asset at the grid’s edge. Electric providers with a stronger brand are more likely to see EV-owning or EV-curious customers engage with them and get to a win-win for the customer and provider.
CHARGE has been a great partner in raising the profile of branding as an important part of the energy ecosystem. It’s also brought together practitioners to share best practices and insights that attendees can use in building their own company’s brand. We support our energy clients at every step of this journey—from brand positioning to brand health monitoring—so it’s great to partner with an event that is so energizing and inspirational for energy marketers.
- How does Escalent help energy companies understand consumer behavior, and why is this crucial for building stronger brands in the sector?
We have a variety of techniques we apply to help our clients understand consumer behavior, from data analytics to behavioral science and AI. What we do really depends on what our client is trying to achieve in their business. To stick with the e-mobility sector as an example, charge point operators (CPOs) are all currently operating in the long shadow of Tesla’s Supercharger network—which is to say, Tesla has strong brand recognition and nobody else comes anywhere close, which we’ve seen in our EVForward research program on the next generation of EV buyers. However, utilization—which means getting drivers to choose your brand rather than Tesla’s—is key to the long-term financial sustainability of CPOs’ businesses. We built a choice model that helps CPO brands determine the right positioning to maximize utilization. So, this is a case of using consumer data and advanced data analytics to help build strong brands that will thrive in an electrified future.
- With the energy industry undergoing rapid transformation, what data-driven strategies can companies use to enhance trust, reputation, and customer engagement?
We think it’s important to start with the end in mind. Are you looking to enhance trust, reputation, and/or custom engagement to drive utilization (as in the CPO example)? Or enhance customer retention? Or to drive uptake of programs?
Once there’s clarity on the goal(s), we suggest starting with where customers are: what are their current experiences? Their expectations? Their behaviors? This exploration can take the form of interrogating customer data, like that in CRM systems, primary quantitative studies, or primary qualitative studies. Many of our clients combine these techniques to obtain a deep understanding of customer needs and this leads to understanding what drives trust, reputation, customer engagement, and ultimately the customer behavior you’re seeking.
Companies that have a solid understanding of these dynamics can then track—usually with quantitative studies, but also sometimes with operational dashboards—whether the key drivers are moving in the right direction over time or if they should make adjustments to their approach.
- What key trends or challenges in energy branding and consumer sentiment has Escalent identified, and how do these insights shape industry decision-making?
By far the biggest challenge we’ve seen is economic. Increased energy prices and an overall inflationary environment have put customers in a situation where they don’t understand why their bills are suddenly so high, what they can do to better control their energy bill, and for many customers, they struggle to pay it alongside other household expenses.
In this environment, brand activities that don’t respond directly to these customer challenges fall flat. For example, customers don’t want to hear about low-income energy assistance programs if they’re not eligible for them and are struggling to pay their bill. They’re asking, rightfully so, “what do you have for me?”
Effective approaches center customer empathy and tangible programs/products that can help customers. Energy companies need to offer a portfolio of rates, energy efficiency programs, and even billing programs like budget bill or prepay. Communicating these programs to and engaging with customers to help them sign up for programs that work best for their personal situation—in other words, facilitating customers being able to customize their relationship with their energy provider—has shown to support strong brands during this time, according to our research.
- What do you hope to achieve through Escalent’s partnership with CHARGE, and what key takeaways do you want attendees to gain from your presence at the event?
We want to continue to raise the profile of branding within energy companies and make the case that it’s more important than ever to focus on.
We’re going to be sharing insights from our national syndicated research study with residential customers of over 145 US utilities that will allow attendees to begin pivoting towards what younger customers want from their energy provider.