Top 3 Ways to Prepare Your Utility for Hurricane Season 2019

June has arrived, which means so has the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. Last year, Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael devastated the Carolina coasts and Florida Panhandle. To get ahead of this year’s storms and ensure your customers are informed at all times, we’ve rounded up the top three ways your utility should prepare for the 2019 hurricane season. 

1. Equip your utility with the proper tools

Take inventory of your utility's customer experience tools before a storm occurs. Make sure you offer an outage map that informs customers of the cause and location of an outage, as well as the estimated time of restoration. 

It’s also crucial that your utility offers fast and effective ways for your customers to receive updates and get their questions answered during a storm. This can be through an alert and preference management solution that helps update your customers via email, SMS text, mobile app push notifications, and more.

When implemented together, your customers can sign up for outage alerts via the Notifi^® alerts and preference management solution directly from your KUBRA Storm Center™ outage map. These are vital tools to help keep your customers informed on the latest outage status, storm alerts, ice truck locations, and more.

2. Educate your customers

Your customers are relying on you for information during a storm or outage. Ensure they are fully aware of the self-service tools available to them during an event, ideally before one occurs. You can do this by promoting your tools, such as an outage map or opt-in text alerts, through various marketing campaigns. Marketing tactics can include social media campaigns, blog posts, email campaigns, and reminders in bill inserts. Once customers are aware of the resources available to them and understand the value, they’ll be more likely to use and benefit from these tools during a storm.

To further ensure your customers are aware of outages, you can enroll 100% of customers in a proactive alert program to send outage alerts. Utilities have implicit consent from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to send outage alerts to customers.

3. Ensure customers are prepared

As their trusted utility, make sure your customers are prepared for a hurricane with helpful tips, data, and resources. Resources can include blogs or emails with information on emergency evacuation routes, how to pack an emergency supplies kit, tips to review insurance policies, and more.

See how KUBRA has prepared for the 2019 hurricane season here. Make sure your utility takes a proactive approach with tools and communications systems that keep your customers safe and informed. Visit kubra.com to set up a demo of Storm Center™ outage map and Notifi alerts and preference management today.