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Page 2: More of Duke Energy's lessons learned >> By Jesse Berst
Fortunately, our industry has sources for scientific insights that can improve customer engagement, as I learned while conducting interviews for our next webinar titled The Science of Customer Engagement -- Applying behavioral science to home energy reports and energy efficiency. It will be on Tuesday, April 24, at 10:30 a.m. Pacific /1:30 p.m. Eastern and you're invited, of course. (Click to sign up for free while space remains.)
The first insight I gained came from Dr. Paul Cole, a psychologist who is VP of Consumer Products for Tendril, where he oversees the ways in which the company’s products and services are developed and evolve based upon research and experience with behavioral science. Tendril's approach to customer engagement, called Active and Social Learning, is based on customized recommendations and on creating an ongoing dialogue. Through that dialogue, goes the theory, customers become progressively more engaged with the decisions that positively impact their energy consumption. It's a journey rather than a destination.
Creating persistent change
"It's one thing to provoke a change," says Dr. Cole. "But for that change to persist, customers must change habits." And you need different tools to encourage customers to change habits, he says. "It is essential to encourage customers to set a goal and then to give them feedback on their progress," he says. Customers do best when they have:
"It is important to think of paper reports as a first step on the customer engagement journey," Dr. Cole advises. The dialog typically moves from paper to portal to interactive support and engagement (web, email, mobile) to more sophisticated tools that deliver more control over energy such as programmable thermostats, home energy monitors, EV chargers and smart appliances.
The Duke Energy journey to customer engagement
I got a second insight from Delta Sonderman, Product Development Manager at Duke Energy, who helped me understand the value of extensive experimentation and testing to fine-tune programs for maximum effectiveness. Duke began its journey back in 2009. Duke was rigorous, testing different formats for its home energy reports from 2009 to 2011. Among the learnings:
Page 2: More of Duke Energy's lessons learned >>
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