Our company talks to utilities all over the world about the value of analytics and "the digital utility," and we share analytics use cases across: assets and operations; customers; portfolio; and corporate operations (see diagram below). In this third post of my four-part series, I'll highlight a customer analytics use case.

Customer analytics: Analytics use case

Customer analytics can be used within a utility the same way it's used in banking, retail, telecommunications or any other industry: to better understand customers. Utilities can use customer analytics to segment or group like customers together to offer them the most appropriate programs and services to meet their particular needs. Customer analytics can also be used to more accurately understand demand, which will help reduce costs for both the utility and its customers in the future. Regardless of whether the utility operates in a regulated or de-regulated market, customer analytics will help provide value to the utility and to its customers.

Endesa, Spain's leading electricity dealer and second-largest gas vendor, recently moved from a regulated market and are now operating in a deregulated market. The company used analytics to reduce customer churn by 50 percent, increased their gas sales, reduced customer acquisition costs and improved cross selling. They achieved all of this while also reducing the time it took to create marketing campaigns from weeks to hours.

For more details on Endesa's customer analytics success, read this see this article. Then be sure to read this white paper: How Analytics Reveals New Utility Customer Value.