Utility welcomes fresh ideas to enhance customer experience
CPS Energy held its first Customer Centric Competition in April, calling on creative minds to plug into the new world of the “Enernet,” where energy and technology are being merged to enhance the customer’s experience with the utility.
“It’s really a ‘pitch contest.’ We’re asking innovators in our community for their best ideas for making a difference for our customers around energy. There are a lot of great ideas out there, but they rarely see the light of day,” Thaddeus Crawford, CPS Energy’s senior director of business integration, told American Gas.
With a desire to give their customers more convenience, control and choice, the utility welcomed creative technology players, from novice to expert, to submit ideas and new concepts.
“Is it an innovation that would work with our developing smart grid, the market’s new smart technology in appliances or maybe electric vehicles? Is it a software idea the market hasn’t seen yet? We’re open to all new, constructive and bold ideas,” the utility said in a release about the competition, which was heavily promoted through social media.
The utility enjoyed a better-than-expected turnout at the kickoff event, where participants heard about the utility’s customer base and their expectations and demands centering on energy use. The company also livestreamed the event, which was held at its Technical Training Center.
The top seven ideas submitted were narrowed to three, and during the company’s “Empower U” event in May, employees selected the Platinum winner, who received $5,000; the $3,000 gold winner; and the $2,000 silver winner.
The idea for the competition came from a desire by CPS Energy’s President and CEO Paula Gold-Williams to follow up on the company’s inaugural Future of Energy Symposium, held last year, that focused on innovation and community engagement.
CPS Energy plans to make the competition an annual event. “People clearly have some really cool ideas. We think we’ve tapped into something here, and we’d really like to leverage it to the benefit of our customers,” Crawford said.
The event perfectly fits the utility’s mission of putting people first, starting with turning to the community for ideas, involving employees in selecting the best ideas and ultimately delivering them for the benefit of CPS Energy customers, he said.