As has been held for two years now, the SECC awarded five retail electric providers with Best Practices Awards for their continued efforts on recognizing the customer first.
These awards showcase the considerable efforts that companies place in developing concrete approaches for a customer-based utilization of the energy ecosystem. In other words, a lot of resources and creativity are generating some intelligent innovations for retail customers.
Reliant Energy Takes the Best Practices Award
When analyzing the winner of this year’s Smart Energy Innovation Award, Reliant Energy–a subsidiary of NRG–did some strong work with their voice-activated energy management system for retail customers. And considering that NRG-based Reliant has the largest retail customer base in all of Texas, that is a very considerable undertaking.
The innovations Reliant made was done through their plans that integrate Google and Nest technologies to make for seamless management and savings for all customers. This has led to not only ease-of-use for customers with Reliant plans, but also more savings as Nest Thermometers and Google Home Hubs make managing temperatures about as simple as it has ever been. And they moved a step beyond that to offer customers with a way to visualize the data relevant to their energy use.
So, what this really means is that users can synchronize their Reliant accounts with the Google interface and have a 3-dimensional, interactive, management system that not only saves money for customers, but also cuts down energy waste throughout the country, as more people adopt the dynamic of the Reliant Truly Free Weekends Plan and their other offerings. And all of this can be done through voice prompts as simple as, “ Hey Google, show me my electricity usage.”
Austin Energy Receives the Consumer Education Award
There were other awards that were handed out as well that showed the importance placed on a customer-centric approach to business. Just like Reliant, who went above and beyond to make a user-friendly dynamic, so too many other companies invested the time for their fellow citizen.
As is the spirit of the Best Practices Awards, it is one thing to spend a lot of time and effort in innovations that further means of production, but it is another to place an emphasis on educating the general population regarding the energy industry like Austin Energy was awarded for with their Consumer Education Award.
Avangrid Wins the Underserved Markets Award
A similar initiative was made for Avangrid who won the Underserved Markets Awards and their program that placed a large importance in the education of the lower-income bracket of energy consumers.
Entergy and NB Power Garner Kudos
And the other two of the five that were awarded at this year’s ceremony were Entergy, who developed an impressive work environment geared towards customer engagement and client relations, and NB Power who had a portfolio geared towards customer engagement as well.
If the awards show anything at all, it is that being innovative for and transparent with customers shouldn’t be overlooked by retail electric providers out there. They’re the lifeblood of your great state and enterprise.