Business customers represent one of the most untapped segments in the clean energy transition. The average business customer uses 11 times more electricity than an average household, but many utility programs struggle to motivate this segment to participate in demand management programs or take clean energy action. The segment is diverse, facing complex energy needs that vary across industries, facility types, and operational patterns—but they’re often served with one-size-fits-all approaches.
Getting business customers’ attention means providing them with the same level of personalization and sophistication that leading digital experiences. Just as streaming platforms recommend content based on viewing history, or e-commerce sites surface relevant products, energy programs for businesses must leverage data-driven insights to deliver truly relevant, actionable recommendations that drive participation and results.
What is Business Customer Engagement?
Uplight’s Business Customer Engagement Solution is designed around the unique needs of business customers, providing personalized energy recommendations, flexible customer engagement tools, and integrated rates and demand management offerings that drive customer action.
Uplight’s solution delivers:
- Customer Engagement Widgets that provide energy insights to educate business customers about their energy usage and deliver best-fit recommendations to save money and energy. These insights can be displayed in customer energy portals or embedded as widgets in any existing utility experience, meeting customers where they already are rather than asking them to navigate yet another platform.
- Advisor Portals equip utility staff and approved third parties with tools to access customer data and powerful report-building capabilities to uplevel engagement with business customers with personalized insights. At one utility, staff saw a 50% increase in a targeted action by creating personalized reports designed to encourage completion.
- Outbound Communications provide business customers with contextual energy usage information and a relevant call to action, right in their inbox. Rather than generic program announcements, these communications leverage customer-specific data to surface opportunities that are best fit for each business.
- Rates Engagement and Analysis tools help business customers understand their available rate options, select the best rate for their unique characteristics, and learn how to succeed on their chosen option. For many businesses, rate optimization represents the fastest path to cost savings, yet it remains one of the most underutilized opportunities.
Evolving to Meet Business Customer Needs
As a leader in the Business Customer Engagement space, we are continuously learning what matters to our non-residential customers and the advisors who serve them, and launching new features to meet those needs. Our latest improvements address three critical gaps we’ve identified through customer research and data analysis.
Portfolio View recognizes that many businesses operate multiple locations, each with unique characteristics and performance profiles. This new feature allows businesses with multiple locations to easily understand their costs and usage across their portfolio and compare premises using standardized key metrics. This view helps customers benchmark multiple locations against one another, identify underperforming facilities, and better prioritize energy-saving opportunities.
Carbon Emissions Reporting addresses the growing demand for sustainability transparency by providing business customers with their Scope 2 carbon emission reporting at a summary level. This helps business customers understand the carbon footprint of their electricity usage and decreases administrative burden on utility staff who often manage requests about Scope 2 emissions.
Clean Energy Tiles expand on Uplight’s recommendation service to provide solution recommendations beyond the behavioral and programmatic demand-side management programs already surfaced today. This provides utilities with a path to surface additional energy products and services like solar, EV, and battery programs directly within the customer experience.
The most successful business engagement strategies recognize that behind every business account is a person—an energy manager, facilities director, or business owner—who wants to make smart decisions but needs the right information at the right time to take action. By combining customer data with intuitive tools and personalized recommendations, we’re making it easier for businesses to participate in the clean energy transition while achieving their operational and financial goals.
