Public power utilities are owned by and comprised of the community, but that doesn’t mean they are automatically making a meaningful connection. Public power utilities already interact with every part of the community as customers, friends, and neighbors. But further building a two-way relationship between the utility and community groups helps increase confidence in the utility’s expertise and local commitment and extends the value of the utility to the community.
Developing these relationships takes time and can evolve in various ways.
Providing Value
In Florida, JEA, the electric, water and sewer provider serving the city of Jacksonville, has a dedicated team focused on engaging with its largest commercial and industrial customers, or key accounts.
“Our key account program is based on a strategy to build, nurture, and strengthen partnerships with the largest and most influential business customers in JEA’s service territory,” shared Traci Day, JEA’s director of business client relationships.
Day leads a team of six key account executives who are focused on providing concierge-level service to the top 150 commercial and industrial customers. These customers make up almost 25% of JEA’s sales. Each of the six executives has a portfolio of about 25 customers. Defining these customers is one of the most important tasks in setting up a key account program. JEA looks not only at revenue, but also consumption, demand, potential growth, and community impact. The team reviews this list annually to reevaluate which customers to focus on and which up-and-coming customers in the service territory have the potential to turn into key accounts.
According to Day, business customer needs and goals change over time, which is why JEA’s team is trained to listen, learn, and change up their approach to suit individual accounts. “Our goal is to learn everything there is to know about a key account, from their goals and needs to pain points, decision-making process, and main stakeholders. Investing in planning and communication is essential to enable the team and their customers to develop a roadmap for success together.”
In the vein of adding value, the key account executives prepare and deliver an in-person detailed annual review for each customer. This presentation includes a rate and usage analysis, power quality or reliability initiatives on the horizon, customer expansion and development planning, as well as details on JEA’s Portfolio of Solutions, which includes electric and water efficiency programs, non-road electrification programs, and fleet electrification. Day said customers find value in this annual review and often include C-suite executives in the meeting.
Day said that her team will continue to focus on deepening key account relationships and begin documenting customer action plans in the coming year. These plans will help guide marketing and communication strategies and formalize the short- and long-term goals and objectives for both parties.
To provide value to JEA’s external customers, Day’s team needs strong, collaborative relationships with internal business partners. According to Day, “the account executives rely heavily on their internal relationships as they communicate with customers about everything from outages to water pressures to rate increases and supply chain issues. In return, the team captures a vast amount of business intelligence from their customers, which is invaluable to the JEA organization.” This intelligence includes information such as expansions to sustainability goals. Sharing that information internally helps JEA craft programs, rates, and initiatives as the utility prepares for the future.
The team’s success is evident in recent account executive survey scores, where JEA’s key account customers reported 96% satisfaction, with 90% extremely satisfied. The annual in-house survey was recently pared down to three questions, from over 20 questions, which doubled the response rate.
Day’s mantra of providing value echoes through the full business customer support team, which, in addition to the key account team, includes a dedicated commercial call center and a team of account executives focused on proactive outreach to JEA’s 25,000 small and midsize business customers. This outreach includes handling internal and external customer escalations, a “white-glove” level of service to assisted and skilled nursing facilities before and after storms, and regular presentations to community, trade, and professional organizations.
In addition, JEA created a small business coalition, which Day said is similar to a focus group for its small and midsize commercial customers. “We share information about new programs and services, offer insight into industry trends, and ask a lot of questions. We want their feedback, we want to understand how they like to receive communication, and we want to know how JEA can be easier to do business with,” she said. Creating that kind of feedback loop has been helpful for both customers and JEA, which is why Day said the utility is now starting a similar customer advisory council for local women-owned businesses. Having established contact with commercial customers has helped JEA in targeting messages and efforts, including a recent focus on rebates for small businesses.
“If we show up for our customers, large and small, and are engaged with them, they show up for us,” she said. “They feel the confidence and a level of trust. We never want our customers to feel like our interactions are transactional. Every interaction is to deepen the working relationship so we can grow — together.”
Available for Input
Lincoln Electric System, which serves a population of about 300,000 in Nebraska’s capital city, has a long list of examples of community partnerships and activities. Some, like its partnership with Lincoln Children’s Zoo on a month-long holiday light display, are highly visible examples that support awareness of the utility’s connection with the community. Others, like meetings with teachers from the public school system, are less noticeable but aligned with the utility’s efforts to support its communities.
“We’re always trying to figure out how outreach will benefit the community as a whole,” said McKenzie Ferguson-Fagan, education and outreach specialist at LES. She said that her position’s aim is to understand how LES can be “supportive of others instead of just attaching LES’ name to something.”
Zoo Lights Powered by LES is a good example of how a partnership has been built over time and how outreach can support the community in various ways. Ferguson-Fagan noted the partnership with the zoo began years ago with a discussion between the utility arborist and zoo staff on whether the zoo would have a use for any of the branches or leaves removed from LES’ vegetation management efforts. That initial relationship led the way for the LES team to propose the idea for Zoo Lights, which kicked off in 2019. Now, the event brings thousands of visitors during the holiday season. From giant nutcrackers in LES lineworker uniforms to having LES’ CEO flip the switch to start the event, LES is an integral part of the event. Employees volunteer to hand out glow sticks, show off an energy efficient gingerbread house, and host a variety of educational nights on topics from safety to energy efficiency.
LES also supports a local children’s museum, which has a creative space called a “Tinker Theater” where different companies can hold events. LES’ activities there have included talking about electrical safety while decorating light switch covers and door hangers. LES also created a “Haunted House of Hazards,” which is a decorated dollhouse that helps share electrical safety tips. It has been at the museum for several years.
A partnership with the city libraries similarly took several years to blossom, recalled Ferguson-Fagan. She said an initial reticence on the library’s part likely stemmed from the belief that the utility just wanted to come in to share its messaging. Over time, Ferguson-Fagan said, she was able to foster a relationship and learn how the utility could best support the library. LES donated books for early readers to middle school students, and now supports a reading program that focuses on sharing STEM-themed books. LES continues to add to the collection, and books are identified with a “LES STEM reading” sticker. The public power utility has also donated coloring pages for younger kids.
The approach mirrored how LES partners with schools. Ferguson-Fagan said she initially envisioned that a partnership with the public school system would mean planning fun activities that could fit into the school day. Instead, she found that teachers “already have their own game plans,” and so she asked more about the curriculum to understand how LES could best support teachers, such as in supplementing them with resources for a unit on energy or electricity. LES staff also sat in on a teacher training related to the energy unit, where they gathered the teachers’ questions, such as “What happens during an outage?” and then prepared a resource guide outlining answers.
Kelley Porter, LES’ manager, customer and corporate communications, said her team highlights how these events are beneficial to the community when sharing about them on social media.
Being visible across the community means that LES now has various groups reach out to see how they might connect. What other groups initially pitch is not always the right avenue for support in terms of what will benefit the community or be most engaging. Often, groups approach LES for sponsorship of activities.
“We can’t always give a dollar donation, but [we] can find other ways to help,” said Porter. She said LES, like other utilities, has been moving toward activities that “get people to engage in a way that interests them.”
Such “edutainment” activities include an electric vehicle ride-and-drive event and allowing the public to tour EdITH — which stands for Educational Interactive Tiny House — to learn about energy use, efficiency, and related utility programs. LES also recruits volunteers to serve as judges for science fairs across the school district.
How LES knows when an activity has been meaningful goes beyond the metrics of how many people attended an event or engaged with a post on social media.
“When the community is asking us for something, that is a sign of success,” Porter said. She noted how some area teachers recently reached out about support or advice for afterschool programs. “They are thinking of us and wanting our input.”
The involvement also has elicited notes of thanks from community members and built advocates for the utility.
As for what’s next for LES, finding new potential community partnerships starts with asking, “Who isn’t asking us questions?”
For utilities that might not yet be as ingrained with different community organizations, Ferguson-Fagan and Porter offered that a good start is simply to begin a conversation — and then continue it. “Make sure they know you are here and that you would like to be involved,” said Ferguson-Fagan.
That continuation can include volunteering for events, such as career festivals or science fairs, or mentoring. They suggested reaching out to local community colleges and community action groups. In any case, they said, the discussion should be on both the utility’s and the group’s terms and should stay focused on how the connection can help the community.
