ElectriCities of North Carolina: Customer Education Made Easy
+183%
increase in DIY home energy audits
TL;DR
Providing customers the platform to learn on their own time, in their own way.
Before
- Carbon copies
- CDs for EE education
- Difficult to engage customers
After
- +183% increase in usage
- Personalized education resulting in increased engagement
- Digital self-serve tools provides easy access for customers
The Challenge
ElectriCities of North Carolina provides power supply management to 51 communities in North Carolina and additional services to over 90 members across three states. They collaborate with their member utilities on achieving strategic priorities that help build stronger utilities. Because their service territory is so large, Dale Odom, Manager of Retail Energy Services, recalled “Before we had any platform, it was very tough to have immediate engagement with the customer.” Like many Joint Action Agencies (JAAs), they faced challenges in keeping up with rapidly evolving energy efficiency technology while striving to maintain high-quality service.
“As a JAA, programs and goals can be challenging because we work for our members and not the end retail customer. We’ve tried to measure success according to participation and clicks, but we really have no control over that,” said Odom. They needed to work with their members on addressing their priorities, and they needed a partner to help them help their members in a more productive way.
The Solution
Brillion’s platform has brought significant efficiency and value to ElectriCities of North Carolina, enabling real-time data collection and immediate report generation during home energy audits. Brillion Educate’s field audit and energy advisor tools provide actionable insights directly to customers, allowing both field staff and customers to engage with energy efficiency data on-site and instantly.
“There’s tremendous value to using the Brillion platform,” Dale Odom said. “When we’re in residential customers’
homes, as we’re walking through, we’re making on the go notes of what we’re seeing.” At the end of every audit,
there’s a report ready for the customer with the touch of a button. “We email it over to both the customer and their
utility and within ten minutes of leaving, the job is done,” explained Odom.
Brillion Educate’s home energy advisor and field audit tools both provide actionable information that’s timely and in the customer’s hands on site. Brillion’s field audit tool is a digital solution that allows ElectriCities to work one on one with the end retail customer, allowing them to digitally engage and educate them. On the other hand, energy advisor allows customers to go in and perform an on-demand energy assessment of their own home and get a report back instantly.
“There’s tremendous value to using the Brillion platform. When we’re in residential customers’ homes, as we’re walking through, we’re making on the go notes of what we’re seeing.”
dale odom, manager of retail energy services, electricities
The Results
Recipe for Success
ElectriCities and Brillion have been partnered since 2016 and in that time, more and more of their members have chosen to participate. With the help of Brillion Educate, more of their members are getting on board because they see how the tool helps their customers understand their energy use and take action to manage it. ElectriCities saw DIY home energy audits increase 183% between 2022 and 2023. “To help promote the tool to our members, we let them know it’s going to take calls out of their queue and staff resources can be assigned in other ways,” said Odom. The call centers leverage these resources to digitally engage with customers so their utility is the one-stop shop for trusted energy info, and customers may not need to call customer service when they have the resources directly available to them.
Building Trust Between Members and their Customers
“We spend more time on site and there’s more discussion. The results come back immediately in a report, which builds better connection between the customers and their utility company,” Odom said about the field audit tool. Terri Kallal, Senior Marketing Program Specialist, explained that with home energy advisor, the customer can go online and do an audit of their homes themselves. “They don’t have to talk to anyone unless they want to investigate further, and that wasn’t possible before Brillion.” She added “A good testimonial to this program is that it does help build trust between the customer and their utility because people can go in and see exactly what’s happening and what their estimated costs are going to be based on rates from their utility.”
Empower Members’ Staff and Customers through Education
“To me, the field audit platform and the way it touches the retail customer is something that was essentially impossible before we were using Brillion,” Odom said. The information back to the customer is immediate with the field audit platform. It’s not a piece of paper that gets lost. The results stay with the customer, and they can refer to it whenever they need to.
They also use the home energy advisor tool as training for customer service representatives. “The CSR’s who use energy advisor for training can give valid tips to the customer because they’ve used the tool,” explained Odom. He said ElectriCities knows that a product like Brillion provides value to not only the member but to their utility customers as well. “It’s been a good fit since day one.”
