Announcing Chartwell’s Business Customer Leadership Council

Chartwell, Inc., a leading provider of insights serving the utility industry, is pleased to announce the Business Customer Leadership Council, a new peer-to-peer collaboration group formed to address the needs of managed and unmanaged utility business customers who require different strategies, solutions and service to elevate their customer experience.

“Chartwell conducted more than 20 interviews with utility business teams across North America and consistently heard of gaps in both understanding business customer expectations and developing actionable strategies that strengthen customer satisfaction while reducing customer effort,” said Stacey Bailey, Chartwell Vice President.  “Now we are providing a new, tailored solution for our members that addresses an unmet need in our industry that will launch in January 2024.”

“Business customers can be a surprisingly overlooked customer category. The sheer number of residential accounts necessitates that programs and processes be targeted to the needs and preferences of those customers,” Bailey said.  “But while the number of commercial accounts likely pales in comparison to a utility’s residential accounts, in some cases representing less than 10% of all accounts, commercial accounts can represent between 40% and 50% of a utility’s revenue, and sometimes more. For this reason alone, business customers represent an important element of the utility’s customer base.”

According to a new Chartwell research report on business customers, business customers want the same things most customers want. They want to feel valued and important, and to know who they can reach out to in the event of a problem. They want to hear from their utility with the information they need, and they want accurate, real-time information in the event of an outage. They want their utility to help them manage their power usage and their billing. They want every encounter with their service providers to fill them with confidence, and they want to understand their pricing structures and alternative options.

Chartwell will leverage a working group format to unite utility business leaders in monthly collaborative meetings and discussions to share strategies, best practices, effective solutions and lessons learned, and to collaborate on key issues surrounding the utility industry’s commercial market segments.

Chartwell Principal Consultant Jennie King will lead the Business Customer Leadership Council with support from John Bord, Senior Consultant for Chartwell.  This team brings nearly 60 years of combined utility industry experience in managing commercial business accounts and teams, B2B marketing, and a deep understanding of customer experience research and strategy to guide the content and collaborations among Business Customer Leadership Council participants.

To find out more about the benefits of being a charter member of the new Business Customer Leadership Council, please email Tim Herrick, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.