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Customer Engagement: The New Metric for Utility Success By Jesse Berst Jun 3, 2010 - 4:43:58 PM
For decades, utilities have been focused on lowering the average cost to serve. And rightly so, given regulatory policy.
But relying exclusively on that metric could be dangerous as we transition to the Smart Grid. Instead, says Greg Guthridge, utilities must also consider the cost to install (the new devices) but most of all the cost to adopt.
Guthridge, who leads Accenture’s global utilities customer care practice, has worked with dozens of utilities and surveyed thousands of customers as part of a recent Accenture research study on Smart Grid consumer behavior. "Utilities must understand more than the cost to install," he explained. "They must also know how much it costs to achieve the behavioral changes they have promised in their rate cases. Otherwise they are driving in the dark."
Let's see. A utility promises regulators and ratepayers big benefits from smart devices. The regulators approve the expenditure... and then the benefits fail to materialize because consumers don't change their behavior.
Sounds like an ugly situation to me.
In the meantime, I urge you to add cost to adopt to your list of important utility metrics. Sure, you should continue to measure your average cost to serve. And your cost to install new devices. But unless you are also measuring the cost to get customers to use those devices, you could be headed for a cliff.
Action items …
Register for the free June 17 webinar
Request the Accenture consumer preferences report
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