Engaging Business Customers in Competitive Energy Markets

Blog Post (FirstFuel) - January 25, 2016

Rapidly changing dynamics in the energy industry have already had a tremendous impact on investor owned utilities. As market factors continue to evolve, the changes are now affecting competitive energy providers as well. Competitive energy markets are becoming more complex, and providers are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition.

This changing landscape is prompting many energy retailers to transform the way they do business. Many are offering services to foster deeper relationships with their customers to transform the relationship from commodity-provider to trusted advisor. New offerings are visible across the competitive energy market, with well over half of US retailers offering new products and services in 2016.

Given these newly developing market dynamics, many competitive energy providers have focused on improving business customer engagement. Business customers represent the largest total consumption and sales revenue of any customer class. However, the diversity amongst these customers makes them difficult to serve.

Through extensive discussions with competitive energy providers, market research, and insights from FirstFuel deployments, this white paper uncovers the specific business impacts and monetary value of digital engagement platforms for competitive energy providers. It explores how these platforms use advanced data analytics to provide deeper interactions with business customers and help retailers tailor energy offerings, provide ongoing advice, and improve their service quality across channels.

Digital engagement through advanced analytics helps to reposition competitive energy providers as their customers’ trusted energy advisors. Customers leverage these platforms to stay ahead of the market and improve their bottom line.

With more data available through the growth of advanced metering infrastructure, forward-thinking energy retailers are taking advantage of the opportunity to carve out space in the market built around value. The traditional approach to improving margins may have been to sell more power, but with an increasingly sophisticated marketplace, winning customers means delivering valued services.

“The more information we can bring to customers, the more value we can bring them,” said Anthony Ainsworth of E.ON UK, which recently launched a digital engagement platform for 430,000 business customers. E.ON’s Energy Toolkit provides business customers with personalized insights based upon their actual consumption.

“The more information we can bring to customers, the more value we can bring them.”

– Anthony Ainsworth, Business Energy Director, E.ON

As a whole, the retail market is still in the very early stages of adopting digital engagement. A recent Accenture study found that close to 90% of small to medium businesses wanted targeted solutions, but less than 40% felt that their energy provider delivered them, showing that there is still tremendous opportunity for enlightened energy retailers.