How we think about and use energy is changing. In this fast-evolving space, putting our customers at the centre of product design is crucial for success. As energy businesses strive to stand out, those that truly listen to their customers and incorporate their feedback into product development will ultimately lead the way. This customer-centric approach ensures that products and services meet real household needs, resulting in higher satisfaction and loyalty.
At Village Energy, we understand the significance of this approach. We believe that our customers are the best source of insights for improving our products. This belief has led us to create a way of working where our customers can directly influence our product development process. Our Feature Request site allows existing and potential customers to share their ideas, suggest new features, and let us know what they would like us to prioritise by upvoting. This transparent and interactive approach not only empowers our customers but also helps us stay aligned with their evolving needs.
Embracing Real-Time, Hyper-Personalised Consumer Engagement
Digital enablement is already transforming consumer processes and interactions around energy, such as digital bill payments, tracking energy usage and notifications. When it comes to interactions that consumers deem critical, like live energy usage and notifications about grid events, they expect near real-time updates and service interactions directly on their mobile devices. The ability to understand consumer journeys in digital channels, resolve support requests, and present proactive actions in customer-facing online environments is crucial. 'Real-time' is the new normal for consumer engagement, and we are shifting beyond personalisation to hyper-personalisation, utilising consumer data to improve the overall experience. We use insights gleaned from how our customers are using our products now, and more importantly how they want to be able to use our products in the future.
Village Energy Solution and Features
At Village Energy, well-designed experiences go beyond enhancing consumer engagement; they simplify a customer journey by anticipating and automating touchpoints and milestones between consumers and energy businesses, whether they are installers or retailers. Our platform combines live monitoring, smart algorithms, and energy automations to optimise home energy management for households in a way that also delivers behind-the-meter opportunities for energy businesses, retailers and network operators. Whether they want to engage digitally-oriented consumers or wish to increase digital products and services, engaging consumers in a connected energy business model means digital service design is a core capability that transcends traditional channel strategies. Think of emerging connected energy needs like emergency solar management, flexible exports and network and market services. Village Energy has designed the hardware and software to enrol and manage consumer energy resources with the customer at the centre of our product design.
The Benefits of a Customer-Centric Approach
In today’s energy system, there are millions of consumer energy resources (batteries, electric vehicles, rooftop solar, smart appliances, etc.), and households are more empowered and want more choice (e.g., green energy). Energy flows are multi-directional, many sources are intermittent, prices can fluctuate second-by-second, and conditions can vary dramatically from household to household and transformer to transformer. The technology model of energy providers is changing, but arguably not fast enough.
The new energy world is hyper-local and very complex. Energy is becoming less centralised, and consumers want a personalised energy experience. Village Energy can access consumer data at a sub-household level, behind the meter, and uses smart tech and algorithms combined with automation and rich engagement to personalise customer engagement and empower consumers with choices about their energy journey. Village Energy also empowers energy businesses and providers to offer future-forward products and services.
Join us in shaping the future by sharing your ideas on our Feature Request site. Your input is invaluable in helping us continue to innovate and serve you better.
