Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative Explores Small and Medium-Sized Business Energy Needs and Opportunities

ATLANTA, April 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) today announced the availability of a new report entitled "Understanding Your SMB Customers: A Segmentation Approach", unveiling a multitude of opportunities for electricity providers to engage small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers in energy efficiency programs and smart energy products and services.

SMBs are widely considered to be the backbone of the American economy, responsible for nearly half of all private-sector employment, yet as energy customers they often fall into a forgotten middle ground between residential and larger commercial and industrial energy customers. For example, SMBs consume roughly 20 percent of U.S. energy, yet they attract less than five percent of utility energy efficiency spending – pointing to an untapped potential market for utilities to service.

To improve the energy industry's understanding of these often-overlooked and under-researched customers, the new "Understanding Your SMB Customers" report divides SMBs into five distinct market segments that are defined holistically in terms of business characteristics, such as type and size, and also by energy-related attitudes, values, behaviors and motivations.

These segments range from the Established & Engaged, who represent 15 percent of the SMB market and are always seeking new ways to use energy more efficiently, to the largely apathetic Decidedly Disengaged, who comprise 28 percent of SMBs and express almost no interest in energy efficiency and other energy programs that could save them money.

To aid utilities in improving engagement with SMBs, the report provides detailed insights into the attitudes and behaviors of these energy customers and outlines interactions and assessments with their current electricity providers. The report also provides useful recommendations on what products, services, programs and modes of contact are most suitable for engaging each market segment.

An executive summary of the "Understanding Your SMB Customers" report is available to the public at www.smartenergycc.org, and a full version is available to members via their online logins and members of the media on request. A webinar on the research findings will be held on Thursday, April 26 at 1 p.m. (ET).

To learn more about the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Jonathan Field
Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative
404-348-8015
[email protected]

SOURCE Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative

Related Links

https://smartenergycc.org