(Cambridge, MA) In a recent survey of almost 12,000 business customers across the nation,Cogent Reports™, the syndicated division of Market Strategies International, found that electric utilities have succeeded in forging strong relationships with minority-owned businesses and with certain industry segments. This and other findings can be found in the Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Commercial study.
Utilities earn an Engaged Customer Relationship (ECR) score of 796 on a 1,000-point scale from minority-owned businesses, which is 48 points higher than the national business ECR score (748) across all businesses. ECR is an overall measure of customer engagement and is comprised of ratings on Brand Trust, Product Experience and Operational Satisfaction.
¡°What we see driving higher engagement among minority-owned businesses is extremely high levels of trust with their utility,¡± said Chris Oberle, senior vice president at Market Strategies. ¡°These businesses view their utilities as trusted advisers and are actively seeking advice from them on ways to manage their energy consumption more economically and build a better business climate. Overall, minority-owned businesses are some of the best customers that utilities serve, with higher advocacy and offerings usage.¡±
Utilities have been able to leverage their trusted adviser positions with minority-owned businesses by encouraging them to use value-added service options and products. In fact, minority businesses have offering usage rates that are double that of non-minority-owned businesses. About 90% of minority-owned businesses have adopted at least one value-added utility offering.
Across all businesses, the industry segments that score highest on customer engagement are technology, mining and manufacturing. These industry segments are also the most likely to have account managers assigned to their businesses and, like minority-owned businesses, have higher usage of utility value-added offerings.
¡°Everyone is aware that presence of an account manager helps raise operational satisfaction,¡± Oberle commented. ¡°But we found businesses that have energy contractor assistance or are using energy consumption management offerings by their utility have much higher scores than those with account managers.¡±
However, utilities have some work to do to better engage smaller businesses and female-owned businesses. Smaller businesses with $25 million or less in annual revenues score their utility low (707) on overall Engagement, while female-owned businesses score their utility low (716) on Brand Trust. This indicates that electric utilities need to develop plans that enable themselves to build trusted relationships with the diverse set of businesses they serve.
