FirstFuel Awarded Top Project of the Year

Blog Post (FirstFuel) - December 2, 2015

FirstFuel is honored to announce that our engagement with E.ON UK was awarded 2015 Top Project of the Year by Energy Manager Today, a leading trade publication in the energy management industry. The award recognizes excellence and innovation in energy management products and services.

In 2014, one of the UK’s largest utilities, E.ON UK, enlisted us to provide the customer intelligence driving an Energy Toolkit for their SME (small and medium enterprise) customers. The Energy Toolkit leveraged the capabilities of our FIRSTENGAGE solution to provide individual energy use insights at a grand scale.

“We are excited for our work with E.ON to be recognized as a Top Project of the Year by the Energy Manager Today,” said Swap Shah, CEO, FirstFuel. “It is hugely important for utilities today to think strategically about how they engage business customers.”

“It is hugely important for utilities today to think strategically about how they engage business customers.”

– Swap Shah, CEO, FirstFuel

In 2014, E.ON UK was looking to offer their SME customers something different. They kept hearing the same refrain from their customers – they wanted help managing their energy use and costs. Most solutions in the market are geared toward residential or large commercial and industrial customers, so heeding this call — which makes up 99% of UK businesses — was a challenge. Wanting to respond to their customers’ needs, E.ON partnered with FirstFuel to develop and deploy the Energy Toolkit. The Toolkit draws from the analytical capabilities of the FIRSTENGAGE solution. Intuitive, easy-to-use, and customer-focused, FIRSTENGAGE uses energy meter data to provide building specific analysis and insight. SME customers that access the Energy Toolkit receive relevant insights pulled from their own data. That’s where the value lies. “By offering pointed advice and meaningful tools that focus on each business customer’s specific energy usage, utilities can become trusted energy partners,” said Shah. “E.ON recognized the opportunity to better engage SME customers and pulled us in to bring our customer energy intelligence technology into the Energy Toolkit.” Over the past year the Energy Toolkit was rolled out to 430,000 SME customers. Since the launch, E.ON is seeing large percentages of its customers accessing their information on a regular basis and providing them with the detailed information they need to make smart energy use decisions. E.ON is hoping that improved customer engagement and satisfaction will ultimately lead to strengthened customer retention. In addition to usage information, the Energy Toolkit seamlessly connects building specific recommendations to energy conservation measures and E.ON programs. Customers see how a program or service will affect their bottom line, and selecting one of these services is easy – as easy as clicking a button. “Our Energy Toolkit provides advice on where savings can be made without the need for major investment in the building itself,” says Anthony Ainsworth, E.ON’s Business Energy Director. Finally, E.ON leveraged the new Energy Toolkit to lower the cost-to-serve. By providing each customer a unique portal with tailored intelligence, they are able to access information, insights and tips that were not available just a year ago – all at the customer’s convenience. E.ON’s customer service representatives also have access to this information which makes for better and faster resolution of customer inquiries. One expert judge of the Energy Manager Today Awards said of the project, “This application could be very useful in many cities, counties and provinces, for small and medium sized businesses that do not have the capacity to hire energy managers to manage day-to-day energy consumption. This is definitely a ‘thinking out of the box’ model to help small business.” The success of this program is a testament to the progressive vision of E.ON and the hard work of both E.ON and FirstFuel. E.ON recognized the value of empowering customers through personalized energy insights. FirstFuel provided E.ON with the analytics, tools, and support to realize that value.