November 2021
Member Spotlight
In 2021, SECC will be recognizing a member each month, providing an organizational profile and highlighting the member's accomplishments in the smart energy space.
About EFI
Energy Federation, Inc. (EFI), an industry leader in delivering energy efficiency technology solutions, is changing the way people save energy and how utilities engage with their customers. EFI is a pioneering technology provider of utility-branded marketplaces and instant rebate programs for utility companies. EFI’s innovative incentive and product all-in-one solutions help utilities meet their customer’s needs – at the speed of life. To learn more about how EFI can help, visit www.efi.org.
Connecting with Hard-to-Reach Audiences
Among the many technologies, programs and customer engagement tools EFI has at their disposal, EFI, Google and Fannie Mae joined forces to connect and engage with low- and moderate-income (LMI) customers that are typically harder to reach. Fannie Mae is a leading source of mortgage financing in the United States. They make sure affordable housing is accessible to homeowners, homebuyers and renters across the country with the help of their housing partners. Their housing partners include mortgage lenders and servicers, housing counselors, real estate agents and other industry professionals. They help millions of people throughout the U.S find a place that they can call home.
Fannie Mae is unlike any company in the utility space because they understand exactly how to communicate with the LMI audience. Historically speaking, this audience has been difficult to reach for utilities. EFI partnered with Google and Fannie Mae to offer a Free Google Nest Thermostat E to customers in select markets to help Fannie Mae loan recipients save money on their utility bills.
Connecting an audience in need, with a personalized moment in time, with a free Google Nest Thermostat is a way to communicate with what was previously an almost unreachable audience. EFI empowered the customer to trust and engage with their utility, all while saving them money on their bills. Generally speaking, LMI audiences have unfavorable opinions of utilities. Viewing them as companies that charge them high prices to “keep the lights on”. So, by providing real value to these customers at the right time, in the right vertical, they’re flipping the script and showing that the utility is a partner and is here to help.
EFI and Google noticed immediate success. On day one of marketing, EFI’s marketplace saw a 300-percent uptick in activity from the targeted segment, 20+ percent conversion rates and over 117,000 kWh savings! What this also did for just one program was open positive channels of communication to 2,000-4,000 more LMI customers, an audience this large Northeast utility was struggling to reach. Sure, this is only with one utility in one area. EFI, Fannie Mae and Google have multiple programs in market throughout the U.S. with various utilities now.
The Customer Journey
EFI understands how important it is to make each step in the customer journey as easy as possible, and it’s why they own the engagement technologies and their own supply chain. As an example, the typical customer journey for a customer purchasing a Welcome Home kit or any energy efficient product goes as follows. The targeted customer visits the No Cost Thermostat page via email, direct mail or other targeted approaches. They can shop around the store and find additional products or learn about additional utility savings programs.
After they browse the store, they seamlessly checkout, and within minutes, EFI’s warehouse has the order in its queue for shipping. From here, the order is one of the thousands shipped every day. However, the journey does not stop with the delivery of the order. After their first order or interaction, EFI and their utility partners re-engage customers ensuring their energy efficiency journey is top of mind, and the impacts are REAL!
- 900,000+ marketplace orders shipped annually
- $2+ billion incentives processed and paid
- 200+ programs running
- 50+ utility and energy efficiency providers across 38 states
- 300,000 calls handled
- Speaking to the audience of one
EFI has one simple goal, engage + empower the utility customer to make the energy efficient decision! And they do so with user friendly technologies, robust supply chains and a growing list of strategic partners. Contact them at solutions@efi.org to learn more.
