Article
July 1, 2017
Rethinking Customer Research in the Utility Industry
This article was published in Public Utilities Fortnightly, July 2017. Copyright PUR Inc. (www.fortnightly.com). Used by permission of the publisher.
Customer research has a long tradition in the utility industry. Today, the utility toolkit includes surveys to solicit items such as demographic and appliance ownership information. The toolkit also attempts to assess customer satisfaction through focus groups in order to discuss new product or service introductions and by scheduling one-on-one interviews with large customers on selected issues such as power quality and economic development rates. Yet each of these methods relies on asking customers to articulate their needs.
