Heating Season Promises Tough Sledding

Joel Gilbert, P.E.

CEO, Apogee Interactive

This heating season promises to be the Grinch that steals Christmas. The combination of high gasoline prices plus higher than normal heating costs is already driving customer interest in online advice up to record levels. Apogee is seeing 40 to 60% increases in online calculator use over historic levels. It’s clear this issue has consumers on edge.

Offer Savings Advice Online

Retailers started their Christmas efforts in September and early indications are that, even with the early rush, the overall impact may be a less-than-expected season if cold weather strikes early.  Consumers are watching spending closely and looking for unbiased advice on ways to save.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for many of our utility clients.  Consumers with air conditioners nearing end of life are natural prospects for heat pumps, and almost everyone is interested in weather stripping their homes.  We hear of consumers thinking creatively about having "warm spots" in their home rather than attempting to keep their entire home comfortable. 

Upgrade to MonthlyInsight™

This is also a perfect time for many of our clients to upgrade their HomeEnergyCalculator™ to MonthlyInsight™ so that consumers can see the month-by-month impacts of usage and weather.  And, for those of you here in Georgia, you will be pleased to know we have just expanded our natural gas model to include all those fixed monthly gas distribution charges from Atlanta Gas Light. Contact ewatson@apogee.net or 770-270-6517 for more details on this added level of value for your customers.

Workshop/Boot Camp Fires Up Web Creativity and Expertise

Karen D. Morris

Marketing Manager

Apogee’s Web Workshop & Boot Camp, now in its 11th year, is our favorite annual tradition. This Fall, more than 50 utility professionals from across the nation came together in Atlanta to experience two day’s of intense training, informative case studies and networking.  Attendees heard JD Power’s 2005 Utility Customer Satisfaction Survey findings, E Source’s analysis of satisfaction drivers, and more. Here’s a quick recap of the top take-aways.                                                                             

Day One – Boot Camp

Our Web Boot Camp recruits learned best practices in web design, writing for the web, security, analytics, web self service and ways to market your website. Our more seasoned users participated in product development sessions providing input that will forge the future of online energy audits available in 2006.  At the end of this intense day, we enjoyed a little R&R during a dinner cruise on Lake Lanier.

Day Two – Workshop

JD Power’s Senior Director in the Electric Utilities Practice,

Jeff Conklin, provided the findings from his 2005 Trends in Utility Customer Satisfaction Survey. Statistics indicate the number of utility customers visiting their utility’s website has almost doubled since 2000. Another revealing factor shows utility customers value good customer service over price, a trend that has seen a steady increase since 1999.

What Drives Customers to Your Website?

According to JD Power, customers have come to expect online bill pay.

Other factors driving customers to the web are on the rise:

• 49% of customers that visit the Web do so to pay and view their bill.
• 10% are looking for general information about their utility
• Another 17% are looking for energy use and conservation information, information on programs and services, and payment options.

These numbers demonstrate the growing value of your website in supporting your overall business strategy, corporate image and program/service/product promotion.

Andrew also discussed several strategies of utilities with the most improved customer satisfaction ratings, such as special outage messaging to critical care customers. Heath also recommends utilities eliminate obstacles that get in the way of doing business easily and being as pleasant as possible.

Web Usability Testing

In addition, Peg Griffith of Graffiti discussed the importance of website usability testing. Following her presentation, Peg led a lively Q&A session regarding best practices in usability labs, including portable labs that can be brought to your location. This year’s workshop also featured panel discussions regarding online energy audits, and a presentation on Manage My Home, an online home owner self-help tool.

Our Fall workshop and boot camp delivered an action-packed two days filled with useful information for marketing and communications professionals, customer service managers and webmasters, just to name a few. Attendees returned to work armed with the inspiration and information needed to help better serve their customers online and make their own jobs a little bit easier.

Mark your calendars now for our 12th Annual Web Workshop & Boot Camp in Atlanta on Oct. 17 – 18, 2006.  For more information on the presentations mentioned above, email kmorris@apogee.net or call Karen Morris 770-270-6501.

New CommercialEnergyCalculator™ Good for Business

Eric Watson

Business Unit Director

Apogee’s new CommercialEnergyCalculator™ (ComCalc) is officially open for business.  This targeted online application helps educate small to medium commercial customers about their energy usage and highlights their energy and demand saving options.  Integrated with an extensive online library of energy systems information, ComCalc is a powerful tool that puts actionable information into the hands of an often overlooked customer segment.

The calculator requires only a few bits of information that the typical facility manager has at his/her fingertips.  Users identify the business they are in, and the type of building they want to analyze, and then answer a handful of general questions about their building operation, such as square footage, operating schedule, type of heating/cooling system, and percentage of fluorescent lighting.  Built-in intelligence prompts the user only for answers to questions that pertain to the type of business they indicate in the initial step. 

Powerful Online Tool Uncovers Savings

After inputting the information about the facility as it currently exists and reviewing the usage and cost estimations, a user can quickly make changes to the input assumptions to create scenarios, each with a new usage and cost estimation.  This lets users instantly uncover ways to reduce the overall cost of energy in their facility. 

Each implementation of ComCalc is customized to account for the local climate and energy rates for each client’s geographical area.  ComCalc comes pre-configured with 62 building-type combinations, ensuring maximum applicability to this customer sector.  Additionally, the client administrative interface allows each of our ComCalc users to model any other building-type that might be of particular interest.  Pricing for the various types of energy used by the calculator is input by building-type, allowing utilities to capture a variety of commercial rates. Pricing can be updated as frequently as needed. 

Real-World User Input and Direction

Our ComCalc was designed from the ground up with direct input and guidance from experts representing a wide range of energy companies.  At each step of development, these experts were consulted and their feedback taken into consideration for subsequent steps.  Additionally this group provided a significant number of billing histories for variety of building-types allowing Apogee to refine and align the energy usage estimates generated by the calculator to real-world commercial accounts.

The process we used has resulted in the creation of a commercial energy usage calculator that has enjoyed broad acceptance by both utilities and their end-use commercial customers.  Initial feedback from clients and customers has been all we could hope for…”easy to use,” “intuitive and accurate,” and “a tremendous help,” are a few of the comments received to date.  For more information, please email or call Eric Watson at 770-270-6517.

The Aging Utility Workforce

Randy Edwards

Director

As the holidays approach and employees enjoy extended vacations, many organizations may see the early warning signs of inadequate cross-training and succession planning. Is your organization prepared to handle large numbers of retiring baby boomers?

Experts in the energy industry have estimated that within the next 10 years up to 50% of the eligible workforce will be of retirement age. The potential exists that retiring workers will leave in such large numbers that today's methods of knowledge transfer and cross training may hit a "wall", potentially exposing unprepared companies to irritating glitches and even failures of key operational systems.

Does your department and company have a plan?  How can you capture the key knowledge elements today to prepare your organization for this increasingly complex challenge?

Cost-Effective Knowledge Transfer Possible Online

Apogee began as an "interactive multimedia company" over ten years ago to meet the training needs of utility personnel. We now have created and amassed an extensive library of online learning courses addressing multiple key areas of the energy industry.

As new employees replace the retiring generation, our Fundamentals of Electricity and Fundamentals of Natural Gas courses provide industry overview information to help familiarize new employees with the key technology, terminology and core knowledge of the industry.

One of our latest courses for CSRs on Solving Your Customer's Energy Concerns is especially important today given the recent natural gas price volatility and financial pressures on home owners due to gasoline prices. 

Converting Hard Copy to Real Knowledge and Hands-On Skills

Many utilities today have extensive training material that is no longer cost effective or practical to present in a stand-up classroom format.  To address this problem, Apogee has built a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) that permits an energy company's intellectual property holders to transfer this knowledge to an on-line format that is retained and communicated throughout their company. This system can capture and organize a company’s knowledge base, permitting new employees to learn what they truly need to know to get their job done, while offering the more experienced employees an information reference library of deeper content.

If you are interested in any of our courses or our method of capturing your company's knowledge that otherwise might retire with your employees, please email or call Randy Edwards at 770-270-6507. We can help you educate your ever changing workforce.

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