Each month, we recognize outstanding utility professionals who leverage BlastPoint’s platform to enhance customer engagement, track program growth, and optimize marketing strategies. This month, we surveyed several of our utility customers about program growth and building engagement for our Spotlight MVP feature!
To gain a deeper understanding of how our utility customers are using BlastPoint’s platform, we asked a series of questions to those customers about their challenges, strategies, and successes. Their insights offer a firsthand look at how data-driven solutions are shaping customer engagement and program development.
Solving Key Challenges with BlastPoint
What is the current challenge BlastPoint’s platform is helping you solve this past month?
One of the main challenges being tackled using the BlastPoint platform is tracking year-to-date program growth. Various teams within our utility vertical need real-time insights into how customer programs are evolving over time. By leveraging BlastPoint’s analytics and campaign tracking tools (currently in beta), users can efficiently measure the performance of their initiatives, helping teams adjust strategies and set more informed goals for the future.
Additionally, our utility customers are using BlastPoint’s exploration tools to create long-term program development strategies. These tools allow users to analyze trends and identify opportunities to refine and expand their customer engagement programs.
Most Valuable Features: A Data-Driven Approach to Planning
Which BlastPoint feature(s) have been most valuable, and why?
Two of the most valuable BlastPoint features for have been Campaigns (currently in beta) and Explorations:
- Campaigns (In beta): Provides a structured way to track marketing efforts, measure engagement, and analyze customer response trends.
- Explorations: Offers in-depth customer insights, helping to define strategic goals and plan long-term program development.
Another standout feature that our utility customers find helpful is the map visualization tool. Due to the size of various utilities, the ability to see geographic trends within their customer data has been a game-changer. Additionally, propensity attributes have been crucial in assessing ROI on customer programs, allowing for better decision-making and resource allocation.
Building Smart Customer Segments
Can you describe some of your segments and the logic behind the rules when building them?
Customer segmentation is a key component of effective engagement. One of our utility customers developed strategic segments using BlastPoint’s data insights. Two key segments include:
- Digital Directors: Customers who are digitally engaged, on autopay, have login names, have logged in more than once in the past six months, have low call center propensity, but may or may not be enrolled in e-bill. This group is highly responsive to digital messaging and self-service options.
- Set-It-And-Forget-It: Customers who rarely need customer support, have no late fees, exhibit low call center propensity, and have high autopay tendencies. This group benefits from automated reminders and minimal manual interactions.
By targeting these specific groups, it ensures that program outreach efforts are well-tailored and drive higher engagement rates.
Insights and Outreach Strategies
Are there any data points or insights from BlastPoint that have surprised you the most in your recent project?
One of the most valuable takeaways shared by our users has been the confirmation of evolving demographics within their service territories. This insight has helped their teams fine-tune their engagement approaches to better align with shifting their customer needs.
What specific outreach methods are you using to engage your customers?
BlastPoint users continue to reach and engage their targeted customers through a variety of digital outreach methods, including: Emails, Digital Billboards, and Social Media.
With BlastPoint’s campaign tracking tools, users will be able to measure the effectiveness of these outreach efforts.
Measuring Campaign Success and ROI
What attributes/features did you find most helpful?
Tracking campaign success is essential to refining marketing efforts and maximizing engagement. By using BlastPoint’s Campaigns feature (in beta), our utility customers will be able to monitor response rates, their customer interactions, and program growth in real time.
In the near future, one of our utility customers plans to expand campaign tracking capabilities to monitor opt-out initiatives. The ability to track engagement trends will help improve future outreach efforts and ensure that marketing resources are being allocated effectively.
Long-Term Engagement and Growth Plans
How do you see BlastPoint fitting into your long-term engagement and growth plans?
Users envision BlastPoint playing a key role in their long-term engagement and program growth strategies. The ability to access segmented demographic and psychographic data is critical in ensuring that they can reach their targeted customers in highly personalized and meaningful ways.
By meeting customers on their preferred communication channels, our utility customers are not only able to expand programs but also improve customer satisfaction scores. This level of customization helps to create a stronger connection between each utility provider and its customers, ultimately driving long-term engagement and retention.
AI-Driven Program Growth: Proven Success Stories
Multiple utilities have leveraged BlastPoint’s AI-powered insights to drive program growth, improve customer engagement, and maximize efficiency. Whether it’s increasing customer participation, refining targeted campaigns, or saving marketing costs, these case studies demonstrate the tangible impact of AI-driven segmentation and analytics in utility program management.
How a Utility Achieved a 51% Open Rate Using BlastPoint’s High-Propensity Targeting
A leading electric and gas utility in the Northeast launched a highly targeted email campaign to drive participation in its Home Weatherization Program, reaching 140,000 customers using BlastPoint’s high-propensity targeting and weatherization take-up data.
The campaign achieved an outstanding 51% open rate—one of the highest they have ever seen—demonstrating the power of precise targeting and saving $175K in campaign costs from a single AI-driven targeted campaign.
Download the full case study here
Boosting E-billing Program Adoption with Advanced Analytics and Customer Segmentation
A major electric and gas utility company in the Northeast partnered with BlastPoint to enhance customer engagement through targeted E-billing initiatives. Using the platform’s segmentation capabilities and AI insights, the utility achieved a 35% enrollment improvement for paperless billing.
With one BlastPoint-powered campaign to about 40,000 customers, BlastPoint delivered an additional $20,000 in paperless billing savings for this utility, highlighting the value of data-driven customer segmentation and engagement.
Download the full case study here
Get Involved: Learn, Connect, and Grow
Stay tuned for our next Utility Spotlight, where we continue to highlight outstanding achievements in the energy and utility sector. Engage with us to discover how others are using the platform and hear their success stories.
Have questions or want to learn more about how BlastPoint can help your organization? Reach out to us today! Our team is ready to help you explore solutions tailored to your needs.
Contact us to get started!