Utilities still don't get customer education

Just when you might think we're getting ahead of the consumer education curve thanks to lessons learned in California, Texas and elsewhere, along comes this shocking post on a Forbes.com blog.

It seems a Purdue University undergraduate conducted a research project that involved phoning 100 utility call centers to ask some simple questions about smart meters and smart grid. All of the utilities contacted were either deploying smart grid technology or planning to, according to blogger William Pentland, author of the piece titled Utilities still stupid about smart grid.

The first shocker is only about a third of the call centers contacted could answer all six questions posed about smart grid and smart meters (questions like "Do your customers have smart meters?" and "Do you have information available about the smart grid?").

Shocker two, the student got some version of the following responses from customer service reps at the remaining utilities: "We only have traditional digital meters that are read at the end of each day" and "No one knows where to send you, what is the smart grid?"

Are you as stunned as we are by these responses? Are utilities still not getting the whole customer education / consumer engagement thing? That's this week's Tuesday Topic discussion. Don't miss it.

P.S. If you want to learn about the latest research and best practices in consumer engagement, the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative is serving up both at its Partnering for Progress Symposium on Jan. 31 in San Diego (on the eve of DistribuTech).

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