We’ve seen first-hand how crucial effective customer engagement strategies are for successful grid services programs. Leap works with over 40 partners across multiple energy markets, and we’ve gained some valuable insights into what’s really driving customer participation. While a healthy customer engagement strategy is an ongoing process that’s continually optimized, there are several foundational elements every winning marketing strategy needs:

Customer experience.

It’s mission-critical that your customers’ interactions with your product and services be positive - especially when you consider that in most cases you’re asking your customers to take some type of action. From onboarding, to receiving rewards, to opting out (and hopefully it doesn’t come to that), your customers should be able to participate with ease. Taking the time to design an ideal customer experience upfront will pay dividends longer term. Analyzing things like customer churn, and understanding why it’s happening through methods like customer surveys and reviewing analytics, are valuable exercises. Paying close attention to your customers’ experience, and making active changes to improve it, will enable long-term health of your grid services offerings.

Seamless enrollment.

Related to customer experience, but worth its own mention, is a smooth enrollment process. Your customers will inevitably have to provide some level of data and information to enroll, so making the process as easy as possible is key. Engage user experience expertise to design your enrollment flow, and closely monitor enrollments and abandonments. Are your customers dropping off at a certain part in the enrollment flow? Are there changes you could make to simplify the process? Conducting and acting on testing and customer feedback during this phase should be a priority. Without an easy enrollment path, the rest of your customer journey won’t matter.

Strong messaging.

When crafting your messaging, consider your audience and clearly define a value proposition. We’ve noticed a few themes that resonate well with customers when promoting grid services: financial benefits, environmental contributions, community support, and maximizing investment in your product.

Investing time upfront in message testing will pay off later and reveal what motivates your customers and leads to conversions. Ideally, you’ll have established customer personas, and this will guide your messaging strategy. Most channels allow for straightforward A/B testing where varying messages and creative concepts can be tested side by side, and you can track what produces the best results. You’ll save yourself time and money later by taking the time early on to understand what’s resonating with your customers.

Enrollment incentives and rewards.

You’re likely aware that enticing your customers to participate with rewards or incentives will boost participation, but this doesn’t always have to include cash incentives. Traditional cash incentives are effective, and still have value in many cases, but if you’re budget-constrained or not seeing the return you’d like from cash incentives, think outside of the box. Non-cash incentives, such as an ongoing rewards system, product discounts, or sweepstakes, can also motivate your customers to participate. As with other aspects of your marketing, we’d recommend testing various rewards and incentives to determine what motivates your customers.

– Leap has dedicated resources to help our partners implement successful customer engagement strategies. To learn more, please contact Stephanie Cole at stephanie@leap.ac.