Commentary
Back to basic tarriffs
British Gas’s announcement that it will simplify its tariffs and stop attracting customers at a loss is welcome and follows commitments by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) to reduce the number of tariffs it has and by E.ON to reset its relationship with its customers which starts with a six month review. These announcements also follow commitments to end door-to-door sales.
This leaves the utilities with a challenge. How to sell a commodity when you can’t really differentiate it and margins are tight? Differentiating on price alone is a losing wicket.
This is hardly a new challenge. It’s what banks and telcos have had to deal with over the last 20 years. The lessons there include: tariff innovation, diversification into higher margin services, bundling of those with the core product, and more detailed customer segmentation.
Onzo specialises in processing energy use data to help consumers take control of their energy use, reduce their bills, and benefit the environment; whilst also helping utilities to engage customers with their energy thereby improving attraction and retention, to provide new services to their customers, and to improve the effectiveness of their sales, marketing and customer service activities.
