ATLANTA – The major benefit in offering proactive outage notification is that, based on anecdotal evidence, the service increases customer satisfaction. But don’t look for outbound outage notification to be a big money maker, according to Chartwell’s latest report, Customer-Focused Outage Notification Services. The few utilities that launched a fee-based service are having limited success.
TXU Energy’s free outage notification service attracted 20% of high-value business customers – the initial market segment it was targeting. This was well over the predicted 7.5% take rate. But at Western Massachusetts Electric Co., the service is targeted to residential customers and costs $4.95 per month. Sign-up numbers have not been encouraging, and the marketing department is in the process of re-evaluating the program, according to a source at the utility. These two energy companies and others are examined for in-depth case studies in Customer-Focused Outage Notification Services.
The report also includes data from two utility surveys – a February/March 2003 survey of 86 utilities about the products and services they provide residential customers; and an April 2003 survey of 80 utilities about the products and services they provide C&I customers. Among the findings: More than twice as many utilities provide outbound or proactive outage notification to large C&I customers than to residential customers. In addition, more utilities are looking at providing outage notification – often fee-based – than almost any other product or service about which Chartwell asked.
The 29-page report, available from Chartwell for $295, is part of The Chartwell Utility Marketing Research Series, an ongoing information service that provides utility case studies; topical analysis and research centered around specific products or services in the utility and energy services marketplace; and a database of 86 utilities and the products and services they offer or are planning to offer.
For more information about the ongoing Research Series, the Report on Customer-Focused Outage Notification Services, or the products/services database, please call (800) 432-5879, or (404) 237-9099.
Press contact: Jennifer Quay Allen (404) 237-9099.
