The Importance of Community Outreach for Outage Communication

You don’t have to be a meteorologist to know that severe weather is becoming more frequent and, well, more severe. Hurricane season is longer and more active, wildfires are moving from remote forested areas to urban ones, and heatwaves and floods are destroying crops and property from coast to coast. Amid this chaos, utilities have to work around the clock to restore their services as quickly as possible and keep their customers in the loop. Because when these events happen, stress and anxiety levels soar. When you aren’t communicating effectively and regularly with your customers, you can add a healthy dose of frustration to the mix, too! Regular ongoing community engagement not only keeps customers happy, it keeps them safe. A key component of customer-centric outage management is delivering timely and transparent power restoration updates that meet customer expectations effectively and maintain trust.

The Power of Utility Community Outreach

Utility community outreach can be broadly categorized into two main areas—though both are essential for establishing trust and building bridges with customers. Engagement and education outreach focuses on sharing things like conservation tips, energy assistance programs, or how to pay a bill. Situational outreach involves more time-sensitive communication during events like outages. 

Proactive customer outreach plays a crucial role in dispelling misinformation and addressing issues promptly, ensuring customers are aware of any developments that may impact them. This is especially important during outage situations, where timely and accurate communication can often be a difference-maker in minimizing inconvenience, ensuring public safety, and maintaining trust within the community.

Additionally, this outreach provides valuable feedback, helping you better understand their needs and concerns. You can use this information to tailor your services and create more effective customer-centric outage management strategies. 

Proactive Communication Ensures Effective Customer Engagement

Enhancing customer satisfaction during outages means proactively informing customers before, during, and after outages. When weather warnings are issued, customer stress levels go through the roof. You must have a detailed outage communication strategy so you can jump into action and proactively inform customers of the potential for outages. This includes letting them know what steps to take if an outage occurs.

Customer communication preferences are all over the map these days. Given that reality, an important part of any plan is determining which channels your customers use and making sure you’re connecting with them there. An omni-channel approach, including mobile apps, text messages, social media, and email notifications, is the best way to ensure you reach as many customers as possible. The channels shouldn’t be one-sided, meaning there should be a convenient way for customers to contact you with questions and concerns. 

Proactive communication takes planning and resources, but the alternative is not really an option. When customers are left in the dark, literally and figuratively, they feel abandoned. There are often legitimate safety concerns that require real-time updates that must be communicated to customers.  

Building Trust Through Honest and Transparent Communication

It’s impossible to get it right every time, especially when dealing with outages due to severe weather, but being upfront about what you know and don’t know is the best approach. Telling customers that an issue will be resolved soon when it may not be possible causes more harm than good. We get it—it’s not easy telling customers you’re unsure of how long an outage will last or that it may be hours (or even days) before power is restored, but customers will respect your honesty and be able to plan accordingly.

Regular updates on power restoration during outages are crucial for managing communication and setting expectations. Avoid confusing customers with technical jargon. Instead, use simple language to help them understand what is happening. This approach is beneficial for overcoming language barriers.

Technology has made managing power outages easier. Your outage management systems gather real-time information, allowing you to convey more accurate and realistic restoration timelines. By tapping into the wide range of communication channels available, you can disseminate information quicker and more efficiently. Getting it right every time isn't going to happen, but continuous advancements in technology are helping to bridge that gap.

Cultivating Customer Satisfaction With Compassion and Empathy During Outages

So many outages are completely beyond your control, and your customers know that. Still, apologizing to customers and empathizing with what they're going through legitimizes how they’re feeling and expresses a ‘we’re in this together’ sentiment that reflects well on your organization. 

When customers are inconvenienced by outages, they want to feel like you genuinely know how they’re feeling and that you’re doing everything you can to fix the problem. It’s never a bad idea to issue apology letters after a lengthy outage to show you understand how it affected your customers and demonstrate your reliability in emergencies.

Use KUBRA To Improve Customer Satisfaction