The Challenge
Jacksonville Energy Authority (JEA) is a fast-growing community-owned electric, water, and sewer utility in Jacksonville, FL, serving more than one million residents. Given their rapid growth, JEA faced challenges in proactively communicating month to month bill changes to their customers in a relevant way. Their customers struggled to understand the reasons behind their bill changes and, as a result, JEA experienced a high volume of customer calls and staff burnout. Additionally, their Energy Advisors were not equipped with tools to effectively discuss customer billing issues, leading to frustrating conversations and customers not seeing additional value from JEA’s service.
The Solution
To address these challenges, JEA partnered with Brillion to run a four-month pilot program with approximately 17,000 of their customers, or 50% of total “frequent callers.” The main goals of the pilot were to:
- Reduce calls to the call center after customers received the videos
- Decrease late payments after receiving the videos
- Increase eBill signups after receiving the videos
The program featured Brillion Engage’s video bill explanations, a dynamic video created by utilizing billing data and Brillion’s data insights engine. Customers who met a designated bill threshold higher or lower, month-over-month, received a personalized video. The video showed the customer why their bill changed based on factors such as weather, days in the billing cycle, and more. Each video included a call to action and survey at the end.
For the first three months, customers were sent the full video bill explanation, and in the fourth month, they were sent a shortened version of the video bill explanation with a targeted ending that promoted customers to sign up for eBilling.
In addition, Brillion provided a CSR tool as part of the pilot to help JEA Energy Advisors. This tool contained the exact same information the customer received in their video, ensuring a consistent customer experience if they needed to call in with questions about their video.
The Results
The pilot program demonstrated that personalized video communications can reduce call center volume, improve customer understanding, and drive desired outcomes such as increased eBill enrollment and on-time payments.
As for the initial goals, JEA experienced:
- 7% reduction in calls to the call center during the program from members of the pilot group who received the videos.
- 7% reduction in late payments from members of the pilot group who received the videos.
- 12% increase in eBill enrollment from members of the pilot group who received the targeted video pointing to eBill enrollment.
The targeted video bill explanation survey sent in the fourth month found that:
90%
of customers did not need to call the call center
89%
of customers found the videos very easy to understand
40%
of customers reported an improved perception of JEA
The program saw impressive engagement results as well:
36,461
Emails sent
68.6%
Unique email open rate
11.8%
Unique click-through rate
JEA saw an average unique click through rate 5-6X higher than the industry average
The personalized video communications pilot program demonstrated that using dynamic, data-driven videos significantly improved customer understanding and engagement while alleviating pressure on JEA’s call center. By effectively addressing common billing questions and providing clear, actionable information, JEA was able to reduce call volumes, improve payment timeliness, and increase eBill signups, ultimately enhancing both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
If you’re interested in seeing how Brillion can help your utility achieve similar results, reach out to us today.
Explore the Full End-to-End Customer Engagement Application Suite
How do you truly engage your utility customers? By getting them the right message at the right time, and making it even easier for them to enroll in your programs.
Do that all with Brillion’s unique utility customer engagement solutions.
Grab customers’ attention and exceed expectations with our outbound communication suite. Send the right video message, perfectly tailored to each customer, exactly when they need it.
Go beyond the video. Use calculators, virtual energy audits, and more tools to show users the benefits of your programs. The more customers understand you, the more likely they are to enroll.
Demonstrate your commitment to the people depending on you by streamlining and simplifying your program management. Easily show oversight bodies you’re doing your part to support sustainability.
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