Social Media for Utilities: Developing a Satisfying Customer ExperienceBy creating a dynamic and responsive social media presence, utilities can enhance customer interaction and influence key decisions, turning dissatisfied consumers into advocates.

• Cognizant 20-20 Insights

Executive SummaryCustomer engagement continues to be among the top concerns of utilities executives worldwide. As consumers flock to social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn to connect with each other and with businesses of their choosing, utilities need to incorporate social media as part of their broader customer engage-ment programs. Doing so will help improve the current relationship that many utilities have with their customers.1 Today, however, most utilities are taking a cautious approach to embracing social media, as they fear the backlash of negative com-mentary on these social forums.

In this white paper, we demystify the progress that forward-thinking utilities have made in using social media to more effectively engage with their cus-tomers. In our view, utilities that embrace social media will benefit from increased customer satis-faction. This paper offers a holistic perspective on social media strategy development, customer sen-timent analysis, tactical execution and monitoring, and integration with enterprise customer relation-ship management (CRM). It also offers recom-mendations for engaging with customers in more relevant ways and meeting their ever-increasing demand for two-way communication.

Social Media Trends in Utilities Although the utility industry as a whole lags behind other industries in adopting social media, individual utilities remain intrigued by the prospect. In the U.S, the use of social media among utilities is more established than in the UK and Europe, where social media usage only recently started to take off. According to a Pike Research 2012 report, the top two reasons that customers communicate with their utility providers through social media channels are billing issues and the need to obtain information about a utility service or program (see Figure 1, next page).2

Many utilities have ventured into this space to discuss energy conservation and efficiency, customer education, branding and promotion, and outages. Social media is gaining acceptance as a viable means of delivering vital communica-tions, customer service issues and promotional offers. Other areas where utilities are using social media can be found in Figure 2, next page.

Implementing a Social Media ProgramWe have developed a four-step approach to enable utilities to implement an effective social media program (see Figure 3, page 3).

cognizant 20-20 insights | january 2013

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Step 1: Think Beyond the Meter

Utilities need to look beyond the meter at the customer premises and create an interactive communication channel through the use of social media. Via social channels, utilities can begin to reconnect with customers by replying to issues and responding to negative comments. The con-necting power of social media can act as a com-

plement to, not a replacement for, more tradition-al channels, such as customer care, e-mail, online forums, interactive voice response systems, etc.

Social media connections can be driven through the following approaches:

• Initiate conversations: Utilities should initiate a two-way channel, with which they interact

Social Media’s Emerging Consumer Imperatives

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

31.5%

31.5%

24.7%

19.2%

16.4%

15.1%

11.5%

6.8%

Billing issue

Obtain information aboututility service or programs

Praise about service

Service outage

Service issue other than outage

Schedule a new service installation

Complain about service

Other

(Percent of respondents)

Base: 73 U.S. consumersSource: “Social Media in the Utility Industry Consumer Survey,” Pike Research, Q1, 2012. Figure 1

Utilities’ Social Media Priorities

Source: Various industry reports 3

Figure 2

Crisis Communication

Description: Outage management and storm information is communicated in real time, such as on Twitter.Examples: Dominion Virginia Power, Public Service of New Hampshire, Pepco

Customer Education

Description: Educate customers through YouTube and Facebook on topics such as recycling, renewable energy, energy efficiency, etc.Examples: Florida Power & Light, Xcel Energy, Nebraska Public Power District

Customer Service

Description: Launch a social media Web site to serve customers through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc.Examples: Reliant Energy, Centrica, Kentucky Public Service Commission

Energy Efficiency

Description: Use of social media to engender energy saving behavior and educate on climate change issues and energy efficiency methods.Examples: Apps like Social Energy App, JouleBug, Facebook App

Demand Response

Description: Platform for realizing the goal of demand response programs, which encourage and incentivize customers to reduce demand during peak periods .Examples: Opower developed a Facebook app promoting an energy-saving competi-tion among friends.

Green Energy Promotion

Description: Market-renewable energy service options, tapping the younger generation for green energy and carbon offset programs. Examples: Duke Energy, Public Service of New Hampshire

Branding

Description: Platforms to monitor utilities’ brand value and for marketing-related activities.Examples: Nebraska Public Power District has created a Facebook page to use for branding purposes.

RecruitmentDescription: Use of LinkedIn to advertise positions and recruit employees. Examples: Southern California Edison, Xcel Energy, Progress Energy

cognizant 20-20 insights 3

not only with meters but also directly with customers. New programs and features can be easily communicated informally among customers, with the help of functions such as the “like” feature on Facebook. Twitter can be used as a communications medium with customers during outages and other crises, such as conveying storm information.

• Drive conversations: One of the most important aspects of blogging is to build a community in which utilities experts can answer customer questions. Utilities experts can provide advice and information on smart meter advantages and capabilities, electric vehicle charging tips, reducing energy con-sumption, insulation, energy efficiency, power reliability, outage reduction information, etc. A rapid response can turn disgruntled customers into ambassadors for the utility. Moreover, because these interactions occur on social media, it’s open for the public to see, which can enhance the company’s reputation for trans-parency and responsiveness.

• Spread conversations: Utilities can create a social mashup, a simple Web-based application that combines content and functionality from a variety of sources through highly compatible and simply installed Web plug-ins. This approach ensures a continuous information feed that alerts customers to tips for reducing energy consumption, using smart appliances, restoring power and other related information.

• Amplify conversations: Social media enables companies to re-distribute messages and

create a “word-of-mouth” following. To enable this, utilities need to enlist their employees and influencers to help create and distribute key messages. Tools that allow amplification include:

> GaggleAMP, a platform that allows compa-nies to amplify their social messaging by leveraging employees, customers and part-ners.

> SocialToaster, which helps recruit support-ers to automatically create word-of-mouth referrals and traffic through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

> Spread.us, a Twitter-only tool that allows individuals to promote campaigns and blog posts.4

A simple analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) will help utili-ties understand the importance of analyzing social media (see Figure 4, next page). Utilities should perform a detailed SWOT analysis based on their particular business strategy and priori-ties.

Step 2: Tap Social Media Analytics, Monitor Customer Sentiments

Utilities can act on the derived intelligence obtained from the multiplying pools of unstruc-tured social media data to improve business results, increase brand awareness and polish their reputations. They can achieve these goals by responding to and managing crises and outages, communicating energy efficiency programs and engaging in initiatives such as online cross-sell-ing and marketing, customer satisfaction and advocacy. Utilities can also use sophisticated ana-lytics tools to harness the power of social data, although such tools are in the early stages.

Making Sense of the Noise

For utilities adopting a social media analytics strategy, it is imperative to evaluate the maturity of social media usage across different business units within the organization. This requires a con-sultative approach, with a detailed assessment of present-state social media adoption maturity, capabilities for adopting new technologies, a perspective on implementation feasibility and a close assessment of budgetary constraints. The real value of social media can be derived from integrating real-time insights from unstructured data with enterprise business intelligence and customer relationship management platforms to advance proactive decision-making.

Four-Step Plan

Think Beyond

the Meter

Tap Social Media

Analytics

Approach to Implement

Social Media Program

Transform Customer

Engagement

Integrate Social Media

with CRM

1

2

3

4

Figure 3

4cognizant 20-20 insights

Utilities can derive value from the large amount of unstructured, free-form text driven by the con-versations and sentiments (positive, negative and neutral) expressed across various social media platforms. This will help them align their customer engagement strategies by listening, monitoring and acting in real-time to meet consumer require-ments. Unstructured text includes comments posted on social media platforms and other blogging sites, customer care notes and customer survey responses.

Framework Development for Data Analysis

We have developed a social listening framework to analyze and make sense of proliferating social chatter. Using this framework, utilities can collect, process and analyze data, as well as deliver actionable business insights. Social listening and analysis is performed on the information gathered from social media, particularly from public pages, forums, blogs, news, review sites, microblogs or any publicly available data from social channels.

The framework encompasses a five-step method for generating social media data insights (see Figure 5, next page):5

1. Identify and crawl social media sites and local consumer forums to capture relevant posts and filter out the non-relevant ones.

2. Listen and extract key information on products and services, energy efficiency plans and new services and symptoms, using algorithms, clusters, filters and taxonomy.

3. Analyze and find relevance within business contexts, relationships with company programs and issues using different analytical models and sentiment analysis.

4. Act and report business attributes and metrics on influence, sentiments, volume and demo-graphics, etc. to derive actionable business insights.

5. Integrate and monitor analyzed information within the enterprise database for continuous insight and customer sociability.

Social business analysts at the command center6 can then work closely with senior leaders within the utility to determine the business scenario, industry scope and specific business cases to track, creating a “social pulse” for enterprise-

Sample SWOT Analysis

Source: CognizantFigure 4

Favorable Unfavorable

Inte

rnal

Strengths Weakness

• Huge source of freely available information.

• Proactive engagement with customers; faster resolution of issues and queries.

• Real-time communication updates on energy efficiency, product launches, crisis management.

• Improved relationship between utilities and customers.

• New mode of communication.

• Requires urgent effort to mitigate negative image and mistakes.

• Return-on-investment is difficult to recognize.

• Requires a dedicated team to look into customer grievances.

Ext

erna

l

• Strengthened reputation for transparency and customer-friendliness.

• Ability to listen and respond proactively ahead of customer trends.

• Ability to measure customer pulse informally and analyze customer sentiments.

• Increased online cross-selling opportunities.

• Easier exploration into new markets, such as Internet-savvy customer segments.

• Need to align social media strategy with legal and regulatory compliance.

• Risk of damaged brand image due to high exposure.

• Risks associated with security, privacy and ethics.

Opportunities Threats

cognizant 20-20 insights 5

wide analysis. The utility’s command center can use established processes to collect and analyze social media data relevant to the overall orga-nization. These processes can then be shared with various business groups (sales, marketing, customer service, etc.).

Social Media Analytics Dashboard

To become a socially-engaged organization, utili-ties need to understand and gain insights from social media through metrics, measurements, sentiment analysis and analytics reporting. A social media analytics dashboard will inform senior management on progress, strengths and weaknesses and then identify ways to improve. Linking social media analytics to organization-wide multi-channel analytics dashboards will provide utilities with a complete arsenal of business intelligence. Figure 6, next page, illus-trates a sample list of metrics that utilities can use to monitor their social media presence with respect to their products and launches.7

Step 3: Transforming Customer Engagement with the ’Utilities Connected App’

To increase the adoption of online customer self-service, forward-thinking utilities are proactively providing information about outages, work resto-ration times and emergency information on their social media and Web sites or through a mobile app. Doing so drastically reduces the volume of customer phone calls and e-mails, thus allowing

utilities to maintain a lean customer care struc-ture and reduce the overall cost to serve each customer. Using social media apps, utilities can not only share messages in an extremely quick and cost-efficient manner, but they can also tailor messages to targeted customers. This creates a win-win situation for both utilities and consumers.

Creating Customer Impact via Social Media Apps

Utilities can develop a social media app for envi-ronments such as Facebook to motivate more customers to use online self-service channels, acquire customers and solve issues related to customer service. The app can enable two-way communications between customers and the utility, such as a bi-directional flow of customer information from the consumer’s social media page to the utility’s page and vice versa (see Figure 7, page 7). Utilities can reap the following benefits from such an app:

• Radically improve customer engagement through interactive “customer journeys,”8 such as submitting meter reads, obtaining quotations, paying bills, sales, gathering product and service knowledge, etc.

• Accelerate customer use of online channels (e.g., word-of-mouth spread through the Facebook “like” feature) to perform necessary transactions, thereby increasing the online penetration of the utility’s customer base.

Social Listening Analysis Framework

ActAnalyzeListen Integrate

• Establishment of command center

• CRM integration

• Data supply chain

• Advanced analytics and metrics

• Industry benchmarks

• Documentation

• Actionable insights after aligning with business

• Basic analytics and metrics

• Periodic reporting

• Real-time dashboard

• Visualization

• Analytical models

> Opinion mining

> Early warning system

> Predictive modeling

> Network mining

• Churn analysis

• Unusual occurrence monitoring

• Sentiment analysis

• Keywords list

• Domain taxonomy

• Data crawling and cleaning

• Filter data and clusters

• Algorithms

• Data indexing

• Querying and search engine

• Scenario scope and objectives

• Source categorization

> Social networks

> Blogs and microblogs

> Professional networks

> Forums

• Source selection criteria

• Analytical tools and infrastructure

Identify

Source: CognizantFigure 5

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• Provide insights that enable customers to compare their power usage with that of their peers with similar living spaces and area zones or to compare rebate programs and heating/air conditioning services from different utilities, etc.

• Reduce dependency on traditional customer service agents, thus lowering the service center’s overhead costs.

• Cut the cost-to-serve per customer in the emerging digital age.

Basic features of a Facebook app include:

• Brand-building:

> Use the social media app to “humanize” the brand.

> Respond to customer queries and be open to feedback as a responsible and account-able utilities service provider.

> Build a positive community of customers through the “like” feature of Facebook.

> Use Facebook apps to provide access to in-formation from around the Web.

> Create content tailored to customer needs.

• Online account management:

> Account overview and summary.

> Energy consumption graphs and analysis.

> Communication channels (SMS messaging, e-mail, Web chat, etc.).

> Crisis event notification and alerts.

> Proactive energy efficiency tips.

• Sales:

> Get quotes for new customers or plan change quotes.

Social Media Measurement Metrics

Source: CognizantFigure 6

Utilities Social Analytics

Key Performance

Indicators (KPIs)

Basic Analytics Advanced Analytics

Billing Awareness

Share of voice (SOV) =

Sentiment analysis = positive (%), negative (%)and neutral (%) Facebook comments, Twitter mentions, blogs, conversations.

Share of voice (SOV) =

Sentiment indicator

Trend analysis: Customer pulse on billing exception and meter reading accuracy trends.

Energy Efficiency Program

Effectiveness

Social reach = Total number of customers across all social platforms conversing on energy efficiency (EE) programs

EE program launch =

Growth = month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter

EE program launch analysis:• By campaign• Per specific social platform (e.g. Twitter, Facebook)• Per specific post

Social campaign cost /benefit analysis =

Customer Satisfaction

Churn rate = number of customers changing utilities

Complaint visibility and feedback = Ability of marketing department or customer service executives to respond to issues raised by customers in social channels.

Social CRM and enterprise CRM integration:• Integrate social media customer data with enterprise

ERP/CRM applications.• Proactive issue resolution: Mine customer social

posts to identify issues discussed and respond appropriately.

• Continuous monitoring: Text and sentiment analysis of social posts of customers.

Number of billing-related conversations

Total number of utilities conversations

Number of likes + number of shares + number of blog

comments

Number of published posts for utility company

ROI of social media campaigns

ROI of traditional EE marketing campaigns

Number of estimated billing-related conversations

Total number of billing-related mentions

(Positive conversations – negative conversations)

(Positive conversations + negative conversations)

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Features of a Facebook App

Figure 7

Brand Building

Sales and

Coupon

ingAcc

ount

Man

agem

ent

PaymentsBilling and

> Cross-selling opportunities for existing cus-tomers.

> Product and tariff management.

> Online promotional activities, such as loy-alty programs, etc.

> Share interesting and customized posts rather than generic sales offers.

• Billing and payments:

> Respond and solve billing issues.

> View billing and other online statements.

> Bill notification to customers.

> Make payment feature.

> Direct debit-enabling feature.

Step 4: Integrating Social Media with CRM

We live in a business world that is increasingly focused on improving the customer experience. One of the best ways to do this is to leverage existing customer insights by integrating social data with transactional and structured data con-tained within enterprise CRM systems.

Utilities can use social CRM to streamline and improve customer communications. This will create opportunities to address customer churn and retain brand image in a competitive and dereg-ulated market. Further, it will help them to stream-line and improve customer communications.

Steps to Integrate CRM and Social Media Data

The steps needed to integrate social media with CRM data depend on the organization’s CRM

maturity and, most importantly, on the way it manages customers. Integrating CRM and social media data should be about converting conversa-tions into transactions. It is about going beyond Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels and finding ways to enter into a boundaryless world, where customers are in control of the conversation.9

• Analyze the conversation data: Listen to and understand unstructured conversations from consumers.

• Understand the social presence of custom-ers: Gather information on customers’ social media presence and create a social map of their details within the CRM system and mar-keting database.

• Define the social media strategy: Define how the social media strategy aligns with organi-zational goals and objectives through people, processes and technologies.

• Operationalize the social media plan: Establish a social media roadmap based on the requirements and processes. Utilities need to consider these three levers:

> People: Culture, skills, training, planning policies, governance, etc.

> Process: Organizational processes, such as marketing, sales, customer service, knowl-edge management, human resources, cus-tomer data management, etc.

> Technologies: Content management, inte-gration, infrastructure, analytics, software, specific use cases, etc.

• Prepare traditional CRM to be ready for social media: Upgrade and modify the workflow, processes, rules, data structure, training, call center, people, etc. with existing CRM systems to enable more effective integration with social data.

• Manage organizational change management: Create a social business change management plan and involve customer-facing departments like marketing, human resources, branding and promotion, etc. to align common goals.

• Integrate with existing CRM systems: Finally, integrate social data with the CRM database, along with social analytics tools, to spot negative comments and work with the business to design quick-response capabilities to protect brand reputation.

Integrating CRM and social media data should be about converting conversations into transactions.

cognizant 20-20 insights 8

Figure 8

Playing by the Rules

Risk and Mitigation StrategyIn this digital world, communications channels have greatly changed, while the regulatory obli-gations of utilities across various geographies have remained the same. Therefore, it’s neces-sary for companies to be accustomed to both the opportunities for and the regulatory concerns posed by social media.

Embracing social media poses risks for utilities; however, companies should not avoid the inevi-table. A risk mitigation strategy can alleviate the impact of negative events and other risks, based on internal organizational strengths (see Figure 8).10

Socializing the Plan Customers are choosing social media platforms to interact with brands of choice and for assistance on products and services. Given this social shift in customer mind-set, it is imperative for utilities

to create a social media policy for employees, senior management and contractors; continue to track basic social media performance indicators; monitor social conversations; and address issues when they occur.

Utilities should implement a proactive social media listening program and generate timely reports for their marketing departments so they can detect negative comments and engage with them before they influence overall market senti-ment. To do this, utilities need to design a syn-chronized event-response center to educate cus-tomers on relevant facts and information on their various initiatives. At the enterprise level, this will be achieved by integrating social media with CRM strategies. Thus, utilities would be wise from the get-go to create risk mitigation plans and utilize social tools and techniques to portray a new, transparent, innovative and customer-friendly brand image.

Known Risks Risk Mitigation Strategy

Negative Comments

A proper response protocol should be in place as part of the social media strategy. Negative comments should be handled by the appropriate departments, such as mar-keting, branding, human resources, business solutions (smart meters, energy efficiency, demand response, etc.). Proper monitoring mechanisms need to be in place to delete offensive and inappropriate comments.

Privacy Risks If proprietary or personal information needs to be shared (such as account details, billing issues, etc.), utilities should encourage customers to interact offline with utilities or customer care executives.

Data Security Utilities should have proper software protections and firewalls in place to protect utilities’ social media sites, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Updated Information

Utilities’ marketing teams should examine information posted on social media sites (as part of the social media strategy) to ensure that customers are provided with the latest information.

Legal RisksUtilities should abide by proper Web site crawling guidelines (such as robots.txt guidance) and should not crawl and analyze personal customer information obtained via social media platforms.

Fraud RisksUtilities should provide adequate anti-fraud training to managers and employees to ensure appropriate social media usage and to identify and respond to fraudulent activities.

cognizant 20-20 insights 9

Footnotes1 “The Rise of Smart Customers,” Ernst & Young, 2011, http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/

Rise_of_smart_customers_-_What_the_sector_thinks/$FILE/The_rise_of_smart_customers_What_the_sector_thinks.pdf. The survey shows 75% of respondents reported a negative relationship with their energy supplier, and none rated the relationship as positive.

2 “Social Media in the Utility Industry: Consumer Survey,” Pike Research, 2012.

3 R.P. Siegel, “Top Utilities Reaching Out With Social Media,” TriplePundit, March 7, 2012, http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/03/top-utilities-reaching-social-media/.

Matthew Burks, “Top Utilities Using Social Media,” Esource, July 10, 2012, http://www.esource.com/Blog/ESource/7-10-12-SocialMedia.

Mike Breslin, “Social Media and Utilities,” Intelligent Utility Magazine, July/August 2009, http://www.intelligentutility.com/magazine/article/social-media-and-utilities.

Christopher Perdue, “Utilities Facing Up to Social Media,” EnergyBiz, June 26, 2011, http://www.energybiz.com/article/11/06/utilities-facing-social-media.

4 David A. Schweidel, Wendy W. Moe and Chris Boudreaux, “Social Media Intelligence: Measuring Brand Sentiment from Online Conversations,” Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, June 2012, http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/faculty/wmoe/SMI%20(ART).pdf.

5 Dr. Freimut Bodendorf, “Social Media Analytics,” Institute of Information Systems, University of Erlan-gen-Nuremberg, January 2011, http://www.iaria.org/conferences2011/filesDBKDA11/Globenet11_Keynote_FreimutBodendorf.pdf.

6 A command center is a monitoring and analysis center in which utilities can track the “social pulse” of customers for enterprise-wide analysis. It uses standard frameworks and processes to collect and analyze conversations, obtain competitive insights and extract customer sentiments. The resulting social media analysis can be passed on to different business groups. The command center engagement model setup can be accomplished through partnerships, joint ventures, managed services and other evolving business models.

7 Marshall Sponder, “Tracking Social Media ROI Viewing Spectrum Analytics,” Webmetricsguru, Sept. 5, 2010, http://www.scribd.com/doc/38176762/Tracking-Social-Media-ROI-using-Spectrum-Analytics.

8 A customer journey is a map in the form of a diagram or writeup that illustrates the steps customers undergo when engaging with utilities for products and services, including the online experience, sales, new product launches or any other combination. It represents the different touchpoints that characterize customer interaction with the service provided by the utility.

9 Chet Geschickter and Zarko Sumic, “Social Media Provides Utilities a New Channel for Customer Engagement,” Gartner, Inc., March 19, 2012.

10 Carolyn Elefant, “The Power of Social Media: Legal Issues and Best Practices for Utilities Engaging Social Media,” Energy Law Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2011, http://www.docstoc.com/docs/84179818/The-Power-of-Social-Media-Legal-Issues-and-Best-Practices-for-Utilities-Engaging-Social-Media.

About CognizantCognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process out-sourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and approximately 150,400 employees as of September 30, 2012, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.

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About the AuthorsDebasish Bera is a Senior Consultant within the Energy and Utilities Practice of Cognizant Business Consulting. He has 10 years of energy and utilities industry experience in consulting, business analysis, business development and operations and has delivered consulting engagements with several large global organizations. His areas of interest include smart metering, energy management, analytics, asset management and energy services. He holds a master’s of business administration degree in operations management from SPJIMR, Mumbai, in India. Debasish can be reached at Debasish.Bera@cognizant.com.

Saurabh Goel is a Consultant within the Energy and Utilities Practice of Cognizant Business Consulting. He has more than seven years of experience working with leading energy and utilities organizations and is responsible for consulting, business solutions, package evaluation and solution design. He holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Delhi University and a master’s of business administration degree in oil and gas. Saurabh can be reached at Saurabh.Goel@cognizant.com.