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Mobile social media for smart grids customer engagement: Emerging trends and challenges
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1611–1616
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser
Mobile social media for smart grids customer engagement: Emerging trends and challenges A. Moreno-Munoz a,n, F.J. Bellido-Outeirino a, P. Siano b, M.A. Gomez-Nieto c a
Áreas de Electrónica y Tecnología Electrónica, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università degli studi di Salerno, Fisciano, Italy c Departamento de Informática, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain b
art ic l e i nf o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 22 November 2014 Received in revised form 7 July 2015 Accepted 13 September 2015 Available online 10 November 2015
Energy efficiency improvement is one of the most important targets to be achieved on every society as a whole and in power system in particular. This target could bring renewable energy resources technologies closer to the ‘Smart Energy Communities’; that would allow the active participation of the so-called 'prosumers' in a genuinely open market. Accordingly, there is a need to develop strategies to motivate and involve citizens in the future electricity system. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have an important role to play in reducing the energy intensity and therefore increasing the energy efficiency of the economy, contributing to sustainable growth. The emphasis of the smart grid in social media through mobile apps could give utilities a collection of new instruments to improve their customer engagement. To preserve long-term customer fidelity, utilities should transform themselves from energy suppliers to energy service advisor. Utilities can draw useful lessons from most valuable brands on how to expand their digital customer experience initiatives. Therefore, this paper discusses and offers guidance for utilities in creating a social roadmap for the smart grid, emphasizing prosumer role. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Smart grids Energy efficiency Demand response Customer engagement Social media Mobile apps
Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Energy services for the smart homes inhabitants . . . . . . 3. The current state of mobile social networks . . . . . . . . . . 4. Customer-engagement in utility sector today . . . . . . . . . 5. Customer-engagement strategies across other industries 6. Action model and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1. Introduction Worldwide energy demand is constantly increasing and it is expected that global energy consumption will increase more than a third in the period to 2035 [1]. Currently, most of this demand is being met by fossil fuels which contribute to increased emissions of greenhouse gases and the warming global. However, according to the International Energy Agency, a major change of trend in the growth of n
Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Moreno-Munoz).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.09.077 1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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low carbon technologies is observed [2], so that Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) could reach 25% of the global energy mix by 2018. Despite this, the development of RESs still faces many barriers among which, right now the most important is the political uncertainty. Longterm policies are required that provide a predictable and reliable market and regulatory framework compatible with the objectives of today's society. Lately, it senses the uneasy thinking that the gap between nature and scale of many of the environmental challenges governments are trying to solve and the resources on which they can call is increasing. Many of these institutions are slow, bureaucratic and inflexible. Much of the current management models emerged in the
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Industrial Age, whose challenges demanded a response that maximizes standardization, specialization, hierarchy, control and obedience, obsession with profit, power, and the interests of shareholders. All these classical values, still living in the heart of some of the most powerful institutions are fundamentally at odds with the dynamics of the world we have now to operate, with values such as community, interdependence, cooperation, freedom, flexibility, transparency, meritocracy and self-determination. A new paradigm is emerging worldwide. The reasons vary, but include a desire to improve the energy efficiency of the community, protecting the environment, and the desire to participate actively in decision making in the energy sector [3]. These motivations are coming together in an oriented under the name of "Sustainable Communities" movement [4]. The desire to regain sovereignty over the way they produce and consume energy has been echoed by most relevant institutions [5–7]: they consider that to increase the social acceptance of renewable energy, it is necessary to adopt a holistic approach around the figure of the "Prosumer" or producer– consumer, who would be able to manage the complete cycle of energy [8]. In the same way, successful implementations of smart grids require a strong customer-centric focus, with a sound market model which underpins customer engagement. Thus, we should establish an architecture that allows distributed, autonomous control, coordinated energy and based on self-similar recursive structures at all levels of aggregation [9], where the energy ceases to be a goods defined only by its price and becomes a mechanism for citizens to become true agents of change in a value creators in the energy sector, either individually or as part of a community. Somehow, the present digital revolution has impelled this paradigm shift. Between 2011 and 2014, over five billion smartphones and millions of applications have been sold and downloaded. The explosive proliferation of these powerful mobile technologies into almost every sphere of existence is radically shaping the way Power and utilities (P&U) communicate with customers [10]. P&U often assign uppermost of their resources to energy generation, distribution, and ratemaking, rather than the deployment of experiences for their customers. Nowadays, they hunger for personalized supports, proactive premium saving tips and advantageous products. These expectations are driven by the customers experience with other consumer-friendly industries such as Banking, Retail and Telecom. This digital embrace will forever alter the utility-customer relationship, leading them increasingly to view customers not as “captive rate payers” but as partners who enable more efficient and sustainable operations. The P&U industry has done a relatively good job in establishing technical roadmaps for the smart grid. But they cannot afford to miss the strategic opportunities that mobile technologies offer to reduce long-term market risks and fortify customer relationships. Therefore, this paper offers guidance for utilities in creating a social roadmap for the smart grid, emphasizing prosumer role. In particular, this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 analyzes the benefits anticipated from smart homes and the types of intervention that will need customers to take action; Section 3 introduces the mobile social media situation nowadays; Section 4 looks at examples of successful P&U engagement projects across the world and their common characteristics; Section 5 considers effective approaches to consumer engagement from outside the energy sector and drawn parallels with approaches to smart grid schemes. Section 6 presents the action model and recommendations. Finally, Section 7 is devoted to the conclusions.
2. Energy services for the smart homes inhabitants As known, the term smart grid refers to “a fully automated electric power system controlling and optimizing the operation of all its interconnected elements, in order to guarantee safe and efficient
operations of energy generation, transmission, and distribution” [11]. One of the main features of a smart grid is due to its ability of favoring customers’ responsiveness and efficiency decisions. Demand Side Management (DSM), comprising all that is done on the demand side, is, therefore, an essential activity in a smart grid [11,12] and residential customers are anticipated to have an active role in the balancing of electrical power systems. The involvement of customers to help balancing supply and demand in smart grids is stated to as Demand Response (DR). DR refers to “changes in electric usage by end-use customers from their normal consumption patterns in response to changes in the price of electricity over time, or to incentive payments designed to induce lower electricity use at times of high wholesale market prices or when system reliability is jeopardized” [12]. Customers participating in a DR program may can change their electrical energy consumption in different ways, such as by using load curtailment strategies to decrease their energy consumption, by shifting their energy consumption to different time periods or by making use of onsite standby generators [12,13]. Some example of load curtailment strategies for commercial or residential customers and industrial facilities can be found, for example, in [12]. Different types of DR programs exist that may be classified as ratebased or price DR programs, incentive or event-based DR programs and demand reduction bids generators [12,13]. While in rate-based or price DR programs customers are motivated to adjust their consumption patterns according to the variations of the price of electricity over time, in incentive or event-based DR programs customers are remunerated for decreasing their electric loads upon demand or for allowing the program manager controlling their electrical equipment. In demand reduction bids programs, instead, customers send to the utility or to an aggregator or energy management service providers one or more demand reduction bids consisting of the obtainable demand reduction and the corresponding price generators [12,13]. DR is promising according to the actual European regulatory framework; however energy companies and national policy-makers and regulators are required to carry out additional efforts in order to handle demand side resources impartially in relation to supply and create clear market rules, incentives and technical requirements for DR. A growing number of energy management service providers are nowadays operating and managing DR programs in the European wholesale electricity markets. Time of use tariffs for residential consumers and industrial load balancing programs exist in many States which have gradually eliminated entry barriers to balancing and reserve markets. The main targets of residential energy management in a smart grid are energy efficiency, planning or shifting of electrical consumption to favorable hours of the day (mainly according to renewable energy production, peak demands or electrical energy costs), exploiting local micro-cogeneration and the opportunity of trading of self-produced electrical energy in excess. According to these objectives, customers tend to participate in the management of the electric power system and assume the role of co-providers. Products and services discerned from the end-user perspective include smart meters, personal health and home-environment sensors, smart appliances, control actuators, micro-generators, storage systems, entertainment consoles, displays, local and remote home energy monitoring and control systems, time variable prices and contracts, mobile apps, security and wellness monitoring generators [12,14,15]. Monitoring and control of multiple in-home devices will be possible for end-user by using a mobile handset, evolving as a main interface of consumers’ and acting as the key device for access to the information. In fact, most customers made the smart phone their omnipresent communications tool and prefer mobile apps if compared to in-home display. Mobile handsets and apps can allow smart homes end-users accessing to information about incentives for energy efficiency and the cost of electrical energy and automatically triggering events such as switching smart appliances or modifying their settings. Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) will allow envisaging,
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monitoring and managing domestic gas and electrical energy consumption thus enabling householders to become more efficient. Moreover they will also allow controlling household appliances according to dynamic prices for electricity or the time of the day and also providing information related to home energy production and the demand–supply balance in the smart grid.
3. The current state of mobile social networks In a noteworthy brief period of time, internet and mobile technology have become an essential part of our everyday life. Adding up all the users in individual nations around the world, there appear to be nearby 2.5 billion global internet users nowadays – roughly 35% of the globe's population. Cell phones, in particular, are almost worldwide omnipresent. According to different reports carried out [16–18], we can draw the following outlook. Since at the end of 2003, there were a little over one billion unique subscribers globally (equivalent to just under one in six people), by the end of 2013 this figure had increased more than threefold to 3.4 billion; equivalent to an unique subscriber penetration rate of 47%. By 2020, most of the world's population (56%) is expected to have their own mobile subscription. People worldwide are using their cell phones for a variety of purposes, like texting and taking pictures or video, while only a few also use their phones to get shopping and health information. In fact, the largest and fastest growing mobile data traffic segment is video. The relatively large micro-video contribution of 32% to social network data volume is noteworthy; this type of content is becoming more and more popular, considering the fact that Twitter's Vine and Facebook's Instagram Video were not available until January and June of 2013, respectively. It is expected to reach by around 55% annually until the end of 2019, representing more than 50% of global mobile traffic. Popularity (and video content) contributes to the network load generated by mobile games too. 10% of smartphone subscribers play network-connected games. Connected mobile games generate 1.5% of an average smartphone subscriber's data volume. Music streaming is gaining notoriety as well, but applications such as caching of content and offline playlists limit the impact on traffic growth. Audio traffic is still expected to increment at an annual rate of around 40% too. Mobile technology is also changing economic life worldwide, even in the emerging and developing world, where many are even using cell phones to make or receive payments. Since 2010, mobile internet use has risen by 18.9%, actually 18.2% of the people use the mobile internet even more often than the stationary internet. The number of mobile subscriptions for mobile PCs, tablets and mobile routers are expected to grow from 300 million in 2013 to around 800 million in 2020. There are many PCs and tablets without a mobile subscription. Numerous tablets do not have a subscription because of the current price difference between models that are WiFi-only and those with mobile capabilities. Another reason is that some tablets that do have mobile capabilities only are being used through Wi-Fi. The cost of mobile data clearly remains a barrier in many countries, but as costs continue to fall, and as the benefits continue to increase, it is likely we will see more and more people with reliable internet access. Analyst estimates for internet-enabled mobile phone downloaded applications —commonly called ‘app’— in 2013 range from 56 to 82 billion. In 2017, there could be 200 billion downloads. Apps put the ‘smart in smartphones’, adding functionality to these devices and allowing an individual user to personalize a phone as well as online experiences. While on smartphone, voice and text messaging continue to be used over time; native app usage on smartphones is continuing to grow at the expense of the mobile web. Younger people tend to be early adopters of new technology and have higher levels of smartphone and apps usage than the rest of the population. More than a third of them install new apps on their smartphones
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several times in semester. App stores make an extensive range of apps available to consumers to download including games, social networking, banking and finance, productivity, transport, shopping, education and sport. Gaming still is the most popular app with 32% of time spent on mobile, while Facebook remained a strong second with 17% of time spent, although exhibiting a slight decline yearover-year. The mobile apps market, though large and diverse, is still in its infancy. Apps are at the forefront of a shift from the way consumers use and interact with traditional media, communications, entertainment and software. In particular, apps areas are being used to deliver content that, until recently, has been delivered through traditional means, such as linear (scheduled and non-interactive) TV viewing, fixed-line and mobile telephony or SMS. Today, social networking is already the second largest traffic volume contributor with an average share of over 15% of total mobile data traffic. People are using social networking to stay in touch with family and friends and to share their views on an array of topics, including popular culture, religion and politics. Social channels continued to show strong growth over the years, adding more than 135 million new users in the course of 2013. The share will remain at the same level in 2020, even though social networking increasingly will include data-rich content. As might be expected, mobile is playing an increasingly important part in the social media landscape. Facebook combined with Twitter (1.5%) and social messaging apps like WhatsApp, WeChat and Instagram (9.5%) grew to 28% of time spent on mobile, up from 24% last year, showing the broader shift from socializing on Facebook to sharing within smaller, more private messaging applications. Worth to highlight that customer uptake of new technology is changing business models around the world. Nowadays customers expect to be able to do everything they want on whatever device they are using at whatever hour of the day it is. It is not only the ongoing development and take-up of mobile apps that will contribute to realizing this expectation. Consumer devices in the home environment are increasingly becoming more mobile and more connected. As these technologies develop and expand, so too will the apps that add functionality and personalization to consumer devices.
4. Customer-engagement in utility sector today While utility-customer relationships were one-sided, utilities often allocated most of their resources to energy generation, distribution, and ratemaking. No longer are utilities just energy suppliers, they are evolving into energy management solutions partners. As they are centering on multi-channel customer service delivery, it is effective to clearly understand and leverage the distinguishing capabilities of each channel. A recent survey [15] shows that traditionally the channels preferred by the customer for selfservice are the Web and the Interactive Voice Response (IVR). However, most P&U are already using social networks to provide outage alerts notification and visualization, repair work schedules, energy savings tips, emergency information, customer responses, sales quotes and even metric tracking for regulatory reporting compliance or business optimization [19]. These channels are ideal for dialogue and serve as brand building vehicles as well. They are also useful as tools to educate the customer on efficient use of energy, promote green energy, and regulate demand response. Yet many utilities have confused providing customers with their personal usage information with providing customers with personal service [20]. A partner might help the customer does something, rather than merely show something. A survey [21] revealed that the more common customer motivational factors are: (i) the reduction of/control over electricity bills; (ii) environmental concerns, and (iii) better comfort. Affective commitment and trust are of crucial importance to engage customers on the basis of non-traditional
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Fig. 1. Present strategy for self-service multichannel.
factors, like attitudes and motivations associated to energy usage. Credited advisors, who are believable, reliable, intimate, and customer oriented, can help clients with these decisions in a way that assures a stronger relationship between customer and utility [22]. Nevertheless, a trusted relationship must be built on the consumer understanding; and this important utility task will take time. Today, as seen in Fig. 1, many P&U are working on mobility solutions for customers to raise engagement levels. For instance, smartphone apps allow customers accessing information such as bill statements and providing self-service options like the facility to make bill payments. However utilities are yet to fully leverage the power of mobile applications, which will offer greater potentialities. Traditionally the point of view has been that only the big will survive, because of the economies of scale. We are seeing disruptive innovations in metering and data services solutions. In addition, home services will become a very open market and there will be major competition from energy retailers, telecoms, Internet service providers, insurance companies and other technology players. P&U companies are slowly gaining familiarity with this rapidly maturing channel even if for many of them implementation of the Mobile channel is still in its infancy. But they cannot afford to miss the strategic opportunities that mobile technologies offer to reduce long-term market risks and fortify customer relationships. To adapt to this new form of information consumption, several third‐party mobile apps already let customers remotely manage in-home displays, and include social competition and social comparison, see Fig. 2. The next logical step, therefore, is to link mobile apps with social networking sites. However, the lack of internal experience often limits the benefits they can realize from these emerging capabilities. For many companies, digital implementation needs considerable internal effort or a very strong external partnership, which may constitute a danger in itself, because new entrants can reach out directly to consumers bypassing energy providers [23]. Definitely, they must devise comprehensive engagement strategies that use leading social mobile technologies while simultaneously expanding their analytics capabilities to harness a vast new universe of data: the big data revolution. Using advanced analytics, utilities can segment their customer base to better understand their customers' attitudes toward smart grid adoption. As the P&U receives customer feedback, including customer information urges, acknowledgment messages and feedback on interaction, she can tailor communications to build continuously relationships particularly with each consumer. Unfortunately, the amount of P&U apps available today is negligible; it is needed to invest in creation of cross-platform mobile app. Further, although apps need to be effortless, many of them are excessively simple in terms of functionality. Also, many
Fig. 2. Example of a new smartphone App for utility customer.
service providers only have a business look and feel and forget the importance of the user experience.
5. Customer-engagement strategies across other industries In marketing terms, customer-engagement tactics are based in making the client feel he is part of the company, and that he is one of the most important responsible of the service quality and brand [24,25]. It is not enough for companies to have a “call center” to pick the feed-back up from their clients or their needs, clients need a personalized service, at their needs and on top of it they expect a newfangled satisfying experience, which means very little effort, they need a Customer Engagement Center (CEC). CEC is responsible for establishing its objectives in client relationships (rising the incomings, rising client satisfaction, loyalty the client, capture new clients, etc.) and selecting correct metrics (KPIs key performance indicators) for results analysis, always having in mind that there are many kinds of clients that require different and personalized treatment [26]. Lowering CEC cost at the same time that client experience is improved means selecting strategies adequately for: (a) selecting the channel and way of communication, (b) establishing loyalty actions and (c) establishing flexible adaptation strategies for constant changes in clients' wishes. Every client needs to implicate with their brand, feel comfortable with it and feel identified with it, like Apple clients: loyal followers and defenders of its products [27]. For companies like Coca-Cola, P&G, Adidas, Benetton, etc., this task can be relatively easy, with a client segment well defined and clients with clear wishes about what they expect of the brand. But, for companies from the energy sector this quest is more complex, due to the distrust accumulated about prices, rate changes and services, etc., and the need of implantation of more technological means of automation and measure of intake elements that let producers set
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to client disposal mobile apps that inform of detailed intakes in real-time, while integrating some client rewarding action [28]. Traditional ways of communication, like e-mails, will be forgotten in a few years due to the pressure they exert on customers, very little personalization of them and a minimum participation of the customer in the relation with the company [29,30]. Although initially, instant messaging took over e-mail, the high intrusiveness of messages caused that the use of that way of communication was reduced to sporadic sent of offers and promotions to clients. Social networks, like Twitter and Facebook [31], have shown to be the most effective communication method [32,33]. Used adequately, not as a way of news dissemination, but as a way of client conversation and participation, they are able to capture a connected public, creating shared experiences and keeping attention and customer loyalty through all kinds of “marketing mix” strategies, like games, promotions, etc., as demonstrated the RealCapnCrunch campaign on Twitter (https://twitter.com/RealCapnCrunch). Other significant examples where important companies base their strategies in contents engagement are: 1. Virgin Mobile: with Virgin Mobile Live it got more than 1 million visits per month, a social editing room which publishes content several times every day. With new music, apps and webs, and sharing contents through a variety of social communities like Facebook, Buzzfeed, Twitter and Instagram. 2. American Express: it has participated in a lot of content programs, like American Express Unstaged, a streaming diffusion concerts program of some of the famous artists in music. Fans are not only watching the presentation in live, but also some exclusive videos before and after the event itself. 3. Renaissance Hotels: business hotels from the chain Marriott that have started two platforms to help customers “Live Life to DiscoverSM”. This platform helps hosts to discover the city outside their hotel, and the program RLife Live helps hosts discover new music, movies, art, food and drinks inside the hotels. Both programs give a wide content to involve invites online. In May, Marriott re-launched RenHotels.com, not just as a hotel website, but also as a place to discover places in the town that promotes social conversations between the users, starting conversations in their social channels. 4. L’Oréal Garnier Fructis: with the magazine Rolling Stone they traded contents about the discovery of new emergent musicians, asking consumers to vote and decide who would become the next artist to appear in the Rolling Stone front-page. To achieve that, they developed a wide variety of contents about this program, to involve and connect consumers in the whole process, with the final object of building a stronger affinity and emotional connection.
6. Action model and recommendations Customer's engagement and loyalty walk together, and actions carried for it must pursue: 1. Personalization: it is about making the client feel special, which is very effective when promoting loyalty and for making the client become an ambassador of the brand, a “prosumer”. 2. Exclusivity: rewarding loyal customers with access, information and exclusive offers. Making a customer feel VIP is an excellent way of getting customers feel identified with a brand, and promoting it inside their social environment on and offline. 3. Mobile Apps: having apps in iPhone and Android is a need nowadays. Mobile apps offer a connection anytime, anywhere with the customer, an open line for bidirectional communication and to send the customer contents of any marketing action carried out.
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4. Gamification: rewarding customers for their collaboration in the diffusion of a brand or a product. Here, social networks and mobile apps play a very important role. Customer actions such as “likes” or “follows” can be rewarded with exclusive offers [34]. Loyalty actions are mainly based in making the customer feel loyal to a good product that generates benefits at a good price for him. Here, mobile apps have taken the main role, allowing companies to direct their offers and promotions in a personalized way to their customers, making possible for clients to enjoy these offers comfortably [35]. Discount coupons, promotions and loyalty cards are the used ways for client loyalty. Besides, this apps favor brand diffusion and make it easy to implant any other kind of experience marketing and gamification strategies, by using mobile technologies like push, geolocation, Bluetooth or the newest of them, NFC (Near Field Communication) [36]. Nowadays, engagement actions based on gamification are having a huge attention. For 2015, a Garner report points out that 70% of the 2000 biggest companies will have some kind of gamification program [37,38]. That way big companies from all sectors (Adobe, NBC, Walgreens, Ford, Southwest, eBay, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, Pearson, etc.) have set out some gamification program [39]. For example, in the health area, CrowdMed has developed a mobile app trough which patients point out their symptoms, medical history and doctors by the ones they have been diagnosed. Patients and doctors are rewarded with points they can later change for prizes. Another example is the one developed by Coca-Cola, which is a bottle cap which can be only opened with another bottle cap, fomenting to make new friendships in American colleges. Different gamification mobile apps have been developed for Charity. This way, Unicef rewards not using your mobile phone for a whole day with drinking water for third world countries. Luchbox Fund donates food to South African children for every picture with food in it made with de app Feedie; Miles Charity donates money to ONGs for every mile we do (walking, by bike) if we publish our result in social networks. Another mobile app was the one launched by Snickers in their campaign named “Going Veg” in the one the users had to solve a jigsaw by using gestural technology in their Smartphone. Once the jigsaw is completed, the message said clear and loudly: “Snickers Going Veg”. Campaign raised its impact even more when every participant scores where published in their Facebook page. A clear example of gamification advantages for client engagement relies in the Walgreens case, which has got more than 85 million users with its program “Steps with Balance Rewards” in the one users share their physical exercise results. However, and even though there can be set different engagement strategies out, companies must have in mind that consumer's behavior is constantly evolving, new apps and social platforms will proliferate and allow a greater personalization in real-time, and participation based in, for example, customer geolocation. That is why engagement actions must be flexible, for which the constant measure of results is necessary. There are some difficulties to measure the returning of investment (ROI) in efforts in social media, and lots of companies will make minimum investments until they obtain concrete proves of investment return [40]. In general, companies must think about the measure of performance and the follow up of result in three main ways: 1. Commitment metrics: made to follow up the percentage of customers “committed”- based in actions so basics are site traffic, fans and followers, shares, etc. (Dell and Gatorade have invested in its own command centers of following social media up). 2. Customer metrics: intended to make a following up of changes in customers' loyalty. 3. Financial impact: intended to catch personal identifiers to bound profiles from social media and the behavior associated to
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the customer records in data bases. Contests and promotions that require the registration of e-mail addresses and social identities are use as customer data gathering. Once the connection is made, companies can trace easily the customers, lead and ROI of social campaign.
7. Conclusions Electrical energy is one of the main elements for the economic development of the society. The just aspirations of modern societies to economic growth have forced them to continuously secure energy resources. In the present context, consumer's requirements have increased the demands on the quality and reliability required for the generated electrical power, mainly in the context of future large-scale integration of distributed renewable energy in the grid. The grid hosting capacity can also be improved, among other measures, by means of storage systems and DR programs. This may prevent to resize the grid by to taking into account the total installed distributed energy. Therefore, is it not only necessary increasing and securing electrical power production, but also customers should be involved in the improvement of the quality of the electrical energy produced and injected into the grid. Empowering the citizen to rule his consumption of electricity, while allowing actively favoring the operation of the distribution network, requires taking full advantage of the capabilities of smart grid technologies. The power of handsets and other connected devices can essentially change business processes. Customer engagement leverages new tools to help driving the change. Engagement strategies need adjusting multiple delivery channels, including web and mobile applications. By using mobile social media technologies, utilities have numerous chances to ease and enrich the lives of their clients. Furthermore, in order to preserve long-term customer fidelity, utilities should transform themselves from energy suppliers to energy service advisors. Smart grids have the potential to benefit the whole value chain, but the market model must be redefined. To facilitate the emergence of the smart customer, service providers need to address several market challenges, such as the need to design for interoperability and to consider how to better integrate existing standards from different applications domains.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser
Mobile social media for smart grids customer engagement: Emerging trends and challenges A. Moreno-Munoz a,n, F.J. Bellido-Outeirino a, P. Siano b, M.A. Gomez-Nieto c a
Áreas de Electrónica y Tecnología Electrónica, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università degli studi di Salerno, Fisciano, Italy c Departamento de Informática, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain b
art ic l e i nf o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 22 November 2014 Received in revised form 7 July 2015 Accepted 13 September 2015 Available online 10 November 2015
Energy efficiency improvement is one of the most important targets to be achieved on every society as a whole and in power system in particular. This target could bring renewable energy resources technologies closer to the ‘Smart Energy Communities’; that would allow the active participation of the so-called 'prosumers' in a genuinely open market. Accordingly, there is a need to develop strategies to motivate and involve citizens in the future electricity system. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have an important role to play in reducing the energy intensity and therefore increasing the energy efficiency of the economy, contributing to sustainable growth. The emphasis of the smart grid in social media through mobile apps could give utilities a collection of new instruments to improve their customer engagement. To preserve long-term customer fidelity, utilities should transform themselves from energy suppliers to energy service advisor. Utilities can draw useful lessons from most valuable brands on how to expand their digital customer experience initiatives. Therefore, this paper discusses and offers guidance for utilities in creating a social roadmap for the smart grid, emphasizing prosumer role. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Smart grids Energy efficiency Demand response Customer engagement Social media Mobile apps
Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Energy services for the smart homes inhabitants . . . . . . 3. The current state of mobile social networks . . . . . . . . . . 4. Customer-engagement in utility sector today . . . . . . . . . 5. Customer-engagement strategies across other industries 6. Action model and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1. Introduction Worldwide energy demand is constantly increasing and it is expected that global energy consumption will increase more than a third in the period to 2035 [1]. Currently, most of this demand is being met by fossil fuels which contribute to increased emissions of greenhouse gases and the warming global. However, according to the International Energy Agency, a major change of trend in the growth of n
Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Moreno-Munoz).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.09.077 1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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low carbon technologies is observed [2], so that Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) could reach 25% of the global energy mix by 2018. Despite this, the development of RESs still faces many barriers among which, right now the most important is the political uncertainty. Longterm policies are required that provide a predictable and reliable market and regulatory framework compatible with the objectives of today's society. Lately, it senses the uneasy thinking that the gap between nature and scale of many of the environmental challenges governments are trying to solve and the resources on which they can call is increasing. Many of these institutions are slow, bureaucratic and inflexible. Much of the current management models emerged in the
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Industrial Age, whose challenges demanded a response that maximizes standardization, specialization, hierarchy, control and obedience, obsession with profit, power, and the interests of shareholders. All these classical values, still living in the heart of some of the most powerful institutions are fundamentally at odds with the dynamics of the world we have now to operate, with values such as community, interdependence, cooperation, freedom, flexibility, transparency, meritocracy and self-determination. A new paradigm is emerging worldwide. The reasons vary, but include a desire to improve the energy efficiency of the community, protecting the environment, and the desire to participate actively in decision making in the energy sector [3]. These motivations are coming together in an oriented under the name of "Sustainable Communities" movement [4]. The desire to regain sovereignty over the way they produce and consume energy has been echoed by most relevant institutions [5–7]: they consider that to increase the social acceptance of renewable energy, it is necessary to adopt a holistic approach around the figure of the "Prosumer" or producer– consumer, who would be able to manage the complete cycle of energy [8]. In the same way, successful implementations of smart grids require a strong customer-centric focus, with a sound market model which underpins customer engagement. Thus, we should establish an architecture that allows distributed, autonomous control, coordinated energy and based on self-similar recursive structures at all levels of aggregation [9], where the energy ceases to be a goods defined only by its price and becomes a mechanism for citizens to become true agents of change in a value creators in the energy sector, either individually or as part of a community. Somehow, the present digital revolution has impelled this paradigm shift. Between 2011 and 2014, over five billion smartphones and millions of applications have been sold and downloaded. The explosive proliferation of these powerful mobile technologies into almost every sphere of existence is radically shaping the way Power and utilities (P&U) communicate with customers [10]. P&U often assign uppermost of their resources to energy generation, distribution, and ratemaking, rather than the deployment of experiences for their customers. Nowadays, they hunger for personalized supports, proactive premium saving tips and advantageous products. These expectations are driven by the customers experience with other consumer-friendly industries such as Banking, Retail and Telecom. This digital embrace will forever alter the utility-customer relationship, leading them increasingly to view customers not as “captive rate payers” but as partners who enable more efficient and sustainable operations. The P&U industry has done a relatively good job in establishing technical roadmaps for the smart grid. But they cannot afford to miss the strategic opportunities that mobile technologies offer to reduce long-term market risks and fortify customer relationships. Therefore, this paper offers guidance for utilities in creating a social roadmap for the smart grid, emphasizing prosumer role. In particular, this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 analyzes the benefits anticipated from smart homes and the types of intervention that will need customers to take action; Section 3 introduces the mobile social media situation nowadays; Section 4 looks at examples of successful P&U engagement projects across the world and their common characteristics; Section 5 considers effective approaches to consumer engagement from outside the energy sector and drawn parallels with approaches to smart grid schemes. Section 6 presents the action model and recommendations. Finally, Section 7 is devoted to the conclusions.
2. Energy services for the smart homes inhabitants As known, the term smart grid refers to “a fully automated electric power system controlling and optimizing the operation of all its interconnected elements, in order to guarantee safe and efficient
operations of energy generation, transmission, and distribution” [11]. One of the main features of a smart grid is due to its ability of favoring customers’ responsiveness and efficiency decisions. Demand Side Management (DSM), comprising all that is done on the demand side, is, therefore, an essential activity in a smart grid [11,12] and residential customers are anticipated to have an active role in the balancing of electrical power systems. The involvement of customers to help balancing supply and demand in smart grids is stated to as Demand Response (DR). DR refers to “changes in electric usage by end-use customers from their normal consumption patterns in response to changes in the price of electricity over time, or to incentive payments designed to induce lower electricity use at times of high wholesale market prices or when system reliability is jeopardized” [12]. Customers participating in a DR program may can change their electrical energy consumption in different ways, such as by using load curtailment strategies to decrease their energy consumption, by shifting their energy consumption to different time periods or by making use of onsite standby generators [12,13]. Some example of load curtailment strategies for commercial or residential customers and industrial facilities can be found, for example, in [12]. Different types of DR programs exist that may be classified as ratebased or price DR programs, incentive or event-based DR programs and demand reduction bids generators [12,13]. While in rate-based or price DR programs customers are motivated to adjust their consumption patterns according to the variations of the price of electricity over time, in incentive or event-based DR programs customers are remunerated for decreasing their electric loads upon demand or for allowing the program manager controlling their electrical equipment. In demand reduction bids programs, instead, customers send to the utility or to an aggregator or energy management service providers one or more demand reduction bids consisting of the obtainable demand reduction and the corresponding price generators [12,13]. DR is promising according to the actual European regulatory framework; however energy companies and national policy-makers and regulators are required to carry out additional efforts in order to handle demand side resources impartially in relation to supply and create clear market rules, incentives and technical requirements for DR. A growing number of energy management service providers are nowadays operating and managing DR programs in the European wholesale electricity markets. Time of use tariffs for residential consumers and industrial load balancing programs exist in many States which have gradually eliminated entry barriers to balancing and reserve markets. The main targets of residential energy management in a smart grid are energy efficiency, planning or shifting of electrical consumption to favorable hours of the day (mainly according to renewable energy production, peak demands or electrical energy costs), exploiting local micro-cogeneration and the opportunity of trading of self-produced electrical energy in excess. According to these objectives, customers tend to participate in the management of the electric power system and assume the role of co-providers. Products and services discerned from the end-user perspective include smart meters, personal health and home-environment sensors, smart appliances, control actuators, micro-generators, storage systems, entertainment consoles, displays, local and remote home energy monitoring and control systems, time variable prices and contracts, mobile apps, security and wellness monitoring generators [12,14,15]. Monitoring and control of multiple in-home devices will be possible for end-user by using a mobile handset, evolving as a main interface of consumers’ and acting as the key device for access to the information. In fact, most customers made the smart phone their omnipresent communications tool and prefer mobile apps if compared to in-home display. Mobile handsets and apps can allow smart homes end-users accessing to information about incentives for energy efficiency and the cost of electrical energy and automatically triggering events such as switching smart appliances or modifying their settings. Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) will allow envisaging,
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monitoring and managing domestic gas and electrical energy consumption thus enabling householders to become more efficient. Moreover they will also allow controlling household appliances according to dynamic prices for electricity or the time of the day and also providing information related to home energy production and the demand–supply balance in the smart grid.
3. The current state of mobile social networks In a noteworthy brief period of time, internet and mobile technology have become an essential part of our everyday life. Adding up all the users in individual nations around the world, there appear to be nearby 2.5 billion global internet users nowadays – roughly 35% of the globe's population. Cell phones, in particular, are almost worldwide omnipresent. According to different reports carried out [16–18], we can draw the following outlook. Since at the end of 2003, there were a little over one billion unique subscribers globally (equivalent to just under one in six people), by the end of 2013 this figure had increased more than threefold to 3.4 billion; equivalent to an unique subscriber penetration rate of 47%. By 2020, most of the world's population (56%) is expected to have their own mobile subscription. People worldwide are using their cell phones for a variety of purposes, like texting and taking pictures or video, while only a few also use their phones to get shopping and health information. In fact, the largest and fastest growing mobile data traffic segment is video. The relatively large micro-video contribution of 32% to social network data volume is noteworthy; this type of content is becoming more and more popular, considering the fact that Twitter's Vine and Facebook's Instagram Video were not available until January and June of 2013, respectively. It is expected to reach by around 55% annually until the end of 2019, representing more than 50% of global mobile traffic. Popularity (and video content) contributes to the network load generated by mobile games too. 10% of smartphone subscribers play network-connected games. Connected mobile games generate 1.5% of an average smartphone subscriber's data volume. Music streaming is gaining notoriety as well, but applications such as caching of content and offline playlists limit the impact on traffic growth. Audio traffic is still expected to increment at an annual rate of around 40% too. Mobile technology is also changing economic life worldwide, even in the emerging and developing world, where many are even using cell phones to make or receive payments. Since 2010, mobile internet use has risen by 18.9%, actually 18.2% of the people use the mobile internet even more often than the stationary internet. The number of mobile subscriptions for mobile PCs, tablets and mobile routers are expected to grow from 300 million in 2013 to around 800 million in 2020. There are many PCs and tablets without a mobile subscription. Numerous tablets do not have a subscription because of the current price difference between models that are WiFi-only and those with mobile capabilities. Another reason is that some tablets that do have mobile capabilities only are being used through Wi-Fi. The cost of mobile data clearly remains a barrier in many countries, but as costs continue to fall, and as the benefits continue to increase, it is likely we will see more and more people with reliable internet access. Analyst estimates for internet-enabled mobile phone downloaded applications —commonly called ‘app’— in 2013 range from 56 to 82 billion. In 2017, there could be 200 billion downloads. Apps put the ‘smart in smartphones’, adding functionality to these devices and allowing an individual user to personalize a phone as well as online experiences. While on smartphone, voice and text messaging continue to be used over time; native app usage on smartphones is continuing to grow at the expense of the mobile web. Younger people tend to be early adopters of new technology and have higher levels of smartphone and apps usage than the rest of the population. More than a third of them install new apps on their smartphones
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several times in semester. App stores make an extensive range of apps available to consumers to download including games, social networking, banking and finance, productivity, transport, shopping, education and sport. Gaming still is the most popular app with 32% of time spent on mobile, while Facebook remained a strong second with 17% of time spent, although exhibiting a slight decline yearover-year. The mobile apps market, though large and diverse, is still in its infancy. Apps are at the forefront of a shift from the way consumers use and interact with traditional media, communications, entertainment and software. In particular, apps areas are being used to deliver content that, until recently, has been delivered through traditional means, such as linear (scheduled and non-interactive) TV viewing, fixed-line and mobile telephony or SMS. Today, social networking is already the second largest traffic volume contributor with an average share of over 15% of total mobile data traffic. People are using social networking to stay in touch with family and friends and to share their views on an array of topics, including popular culture, religion and politics. Social channels continued to show strong growth over the years, adding more than 135 million new users in the course of 2013. The share will remain at the same level in 2020, even though social networking increasingly will include data-rich content. As might be expected, mobile is playing an increasingly important part in the social media landscape. Facebook combined with Twitter (1.5%) and social messaging apps like WhatsApp, WeChat and Instagram (9.5%) grew to 28% of time spent on mobile, up from 24% last year, showing the broader shift from socializing on Facebook to sharing within smaller, more private messaging applications. Worth to highlight that customer uptake of new technology is changing business models around the world. Nowadays customers expect to be able to do everything they want on whatever device they are using at whatever hour of the day it is. It is not only the ongoing development and take-up of mobile apps that will contribute to realizing this expectation. Consumer devices in the home environment are increasingly becoming more mobile and more connected. As these technologies develop and expand, so too will the apps that add functionality and personalization to consumer devices.
4. Customer-engagement in utility sector today While utility-customer relationships were one-sided, utilities often allocated most of their resources to energy generation, distribution, and ratemaking. No longer are utilities just energy suppliers, they are evolving into energy management solutions partners. As they are centering on multi-channel customer service delivery, it is effective to clearly understand and leverage the distinguishing capabilities of each channel. A recent survey [15] shows that traditionally the channels preferred by the customer for selfservice are the Web and the Interactive Voice Response (IVR). However, most P&U are already using social networks to provide outage alerts notification and visualization, repair work schedules, energy savings tips, emergency information, customer responses, sales quotes and even metric tracking for regulatory reporting compliance or business optimization [19]. These channels are ideal for dialogue and serve as brand building vehicles as well. They are also useful as tools to educate the customer on efficient use of energy, promote green energy, and regulate demand response. Yet many utilities have confused providing customers with their personal usage information with providing customers with personal service [20]. A partner might help the customer does something, rather than merely show something. A survey [21] revealed that the more common customer motivational factors are: (i) the reduction of/control over electricity bills; (ii) environmental concerns, and (iii) better comfort. Affective commitment and trust are of crucial importance to engage customers on the basis of non-traditional
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Fig. 1. Present strategy for self-service multichannel.
factors, like attitudes and motivations associated to energy usage. Credited advisors, who are believable, reliable, intimate, and customer oriented, can help clients with these decisions in a way that assures a stronger relationship between customer and utility [22]. Nevertheless, a trusted relationship must be built on the consumer understanding; and this important utility task will take time. Today, as seen in Fig. 1, many P&U are working on mobility solutions for customers to raise engagement levels. For instance, smartphone apps allow customers accessing information such as bill statements and providing self-service options like the facility to make bill payments. However utilities are yet to fully leverage the power of mobile applications, which will offer greater potentialities. Traditionally the point of view has been that only the big will survive, because of the economies of scale. We are seeing disruptive innovations in metering and data services solutions. In addition, home services will become a very open market and there will be major competition from energy retailers, telecoms, Internet service providers, insurance companies and other technology players. P&U companies are slowly gaining familiarity with this rapidly maturing channel even if for many of them implementation of the Mobile channel is still in its infancy. But they cannot afford to miss the strategic opportunities that mobile technologies offer to reduce long-term market risks and fortify customer relationships. To adapt to this new form of information consumption, several third‐party mobile apps already let customers remotely manage in-home displays, and include social competition and social comparison, see Fig. 2. The next logical step, therefore, is to link mobile apps with social networking sites. However, the lack of internal experience often limits the benefits they can realize from these emerging capabilities. For many companies, digital implementation needs considerable internal effort or a very strong external partnership, which may constitute a danger in itself, because new entrants can reach out directly to consumers bypassing energy providers [23]. Definitely, they must devise comprehensive engagement strategies that use leading social mobile technologies while simultaneously expanding their analytics capabilities to harness a vast new universe of data: the big data revolution. Using advanced analytics, utilities can segment their customer base to better understand their customers' attitudes toward smart grid adoption. As the P&U receives customer feedback, including customer information urges, acknowledgment messages and feedback on interaction, she can tailor communications to build continuously relationships particularly with each consumer. Unfortunately, the amount of P&U apps available today is negligible; it is needed to invest in creation of cross-platform mobile app. Further, although apps need to be effortless, many of them are excessively simple in terms of functionality. Also, many
Fig. 2. Example of a new smartphone App for utility customer.
service providers only have a business look and feel and forget the importance of the user experience.
5. Customer-engagement strategies across other industries In marketing terms, customer-engagement tactics are based in making the client feel he is part of the company, and that he is one of the most important responsible of the service quality and brand [24,25]. It is not enough for companies to have a “call center” to pick the feed-back up from their clients or their needs, clients need a personalized service, at their needs and on top of it they expect a newfangled satisfying experience, which means very little effort, they need a Customer Engagement Center (CEC). CEC is responsible for establishing its objectives in client relationships (rising the incomings, rising client satisfaction, loyalty the client, capture new clients, etc.) and selecting correct metrics (KPIs key performance indicators) for results analysis, always having in mind that there are many kinds of clients that require different and personalized treatment [26]. Lowering CEC cost at the same time that client experience is improved means selecting strategies adequately for: (a) selecting the channel and way of communication, (b) establishing loyalty actions and (c) establishing flexible adaptation strategies for constant changes in clients' wishes. Every client needs to implicate with their brand, feel comfortable with it and feel identified with it, like Apple clients: loyal followers and defenders of its products [27]. For companies like Coca-Cola, P&G, Adidas, Benetton, etc., this task can be relatively easy, with a client segment well defined and clients with clear wishes about what they expect of the brand. But, for companies from the energy sector this quest is more complex, due to the distrust accumulated about prices, rate changes and services, etc., and the need of implantation of more technological means of automation and measure of intake elements that let producers set
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to client disposal mobile apps that inform of detailed intakes in real-time, while integrating some client rewarding action [28]. Traditional ways of communication, like e-mails, will be forgotten in a few years due to the pressure they exert on customers, very little personalization of them and a minimum participation of the customer in the relation with the company [29,30]. Although initially, instant messaging took over e-mail, the high intrusiveness of messages caused that the use of that way of communication was reduced to sporadic sent of offers and promotions to clients. Social networks, like Twitter and Facebook [31], have shown to be the most effective communication method [32,33]. Used adequately, not as a way of news dissemination, but as a way of client conversation and participation, they are able to capture a connected public, creating shared experiences and keeping attention and customer loyalty through all kinds of “marketing mix” strategies, like games, promotions, etc., as demonstrated the RealCapnCrunch campaign on Twitter (https://twitter.com/RealCapnCrunch). Other significant examples where important companies base their strategies in contents engagement are: 1. Virgin Mobile: with Virgin Mobile Live it got more than 1 million visits per month, a social editing room which publishes content several times every day. With new music, apps and webs, and sharing contents through a variety of social communities like Facebook, Buzzfeed, Twitter and Instagram. 2. American Express: it has participated in a lot of content programs, like American Express Unstaged, a streaming diffusion concerts program of some of the famous artists in music. Fans are not only watching the presentation in live, but also some exclusive videos before and after the event itself. 3. Renaissance Hotels: business hotels from the chain Marriott that have started two platforms to help customers “Live Life to DiscoverSM”. This platform helps hosts to discover the city outside their hotel, and the program RLife Live helps hosts discover new music, movies, art, food and drinks inside the hotels. Both programs give a wide content to involve invites online. In May, Marriott re-launched RenHotels.com, not just as a hotel website, but also as a place to discover places in the town that promotes social conversations between the users, starting conversations in their social channels. 4. L’Oréal Garnier Fructis: with the magazine Rolling Stone they traded contents about the discovery of new emergent musicians, asking consumers to vote and decide who would become the next artist to appear in the Rolling Stone front-page. To achieve that, they developed a wide variety of contents about this program, to involve and connect consumers in the whole process, with the final object of building a stronger affinity and emotional connection.
6. Action model and recommendations Customer's engagement and loyalty walk together, and actions carried for it must pursue: 1. Personalization: it is about making the client feel special, which is very effective when promoting loyalty and for making the client become an ambassador of the brand, a “prosumer”. 2. Exclusivity: rewarding loyal customers with access, information and exclusive offers. Making a customer feel VIP is an excellent way of getting customers feel identified with a brand, and promoting it inside their social environment on and offline. 3. Mobile Apps: having apps in iPhone and Android is a need nowadays. Mobile apps offer a connection anytime, anywhere with the customer, an open line for bidirectional communication and to send the customer contents of any marketing action carried out.
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4. Gamification: rewarding customers for their collaboration in the diffusion of a brand or a product. Here, social networks and mobile apps play a very important role. Customer actions such as “likes” or “follows” can be rewarded with exclusive offers [34]. Loyalty actions are mainly based in making the customer feel loyal to a good product that generates benefits at a good price for him. Here, mobile apps have taken the main role, allowing companies to direct their offers and promotions in a personalized way to their customers, making possible for clients to enjoy these offers comfortably [35]. Discount coupons, promotions and loyalty cards are the used ways for client loyalty. Besides, this apps favor brand diffusion and make it easy to implant any other kind of experience marketing and gamification strategies, by using mobile technologies like push, geolocation, Bluetooth or the newest of them, NFC (Near Field Communication) [36]. Nowadays, engagement actions based on gamification are having a huge attention. For 2015, a Garner report points out that 70% of the 2000 biggest companies will have some kind of gamification program [37,38]. That way big companies from all sectors (Adobe, NBC, Walgreens, Ford, Southwest, eBay, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, Pearson, etc.) have set out some gamification program [39]. For example, in the health area, CrowdMed has developed a mobile app trough which patients point out their symptoms, medical history and doctors by the ones they have been diagnosed. Patients and doctors are rewarded with points they can later change for prizes. Another example is the one developed by Coca-Cola, which is a bottle cap which can be only opened with another bottle cap, fomenting to make new friendships in American colleges. Different gamification mobile apps have been developed for Charity. This way, Unicef rewards not using your mobile phone for a whole day with drinking water for third world countries. Luchbox Fund donates food to South African children for every picture with food in it made with de app Feedie; Miles Charity donates money to ONGs for every mile we do (walking, by bike) if we publish our result in social networks. Another mobile app was the one launched by Snickers in their campaign named “Going Veg” in the one the users had to solve a jigsaw by using gestural technology in their Smartphone. Once the jigsaw is completed, the message said clear and loudly: “Snickers Going Veg”. Campaign raised its impact even more when every participant scores where published in their Facebook page. A clear example of gamification advantages for client engagement relies in the Walgreens case, which has got more than 85 million users with its program “Steps with Balance Rewards” in the one users share their physical exercise results. However, and even though there can be set different engagement strategies out, companies must have in mind that consumer's behavior is constantly evolving, new apps and social platforms will proliferate and allow a greater personalization in real-time, and participation based in, for example, customer geolocation. That is why engagement actions must be flexible, for which the constant measure of results is necessary. There are some difficulties to measure the returning of investment (ROI) in efforts in social media, and lots of companies will make minimum investments until they obtain concrete proves of investment return [40]. In general, companies must think about the measure of performance and the follow up of result in three main ways: 1. Commitment metrics: made to follow up the percentage of customers “committed”- based in actions so basics are site traffic, fans and followers, shares, etc. (Dell and Gatorade have invested in its own command centers of following social media up). 2. Customer metrics: intended to make a following up of changes in customers' loyalty. 3. Financial impact: intended to catch personal identifiers to bound profiles from social media and the behavior associated to
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the customer records in data bases. Contests and promotions that require the registration of e-mail addresses and social identities are use as customer data gathering. Once the connection is made, companies can trace easily the customers, lead and ROI of social campaign.
7. Conclusions Electrical energy is one of the main elements for the economic development of the society. The just aspirations of modern societies to economic growth have forced them to continuously secure energy resources. In the present context, consumer's requirements have increased the demands on the quality and reliability required for the generated electrical power, mainly in the context of future large-scale integration of distributed renewable energy in the grid. The grid hosting capacity can also be improved, among other measures, by means of storage systems and DR programs. This may prevent to resize the grid by to taking into account the total installed distributed energy. Therefore, is it not only necessary increasing and securing electrical power production, but also customers should be involved in the improvement of the quality of the electrical energy produced and injected into the grid. Empowering the citizen to rule his consumption of electricity, while allowing actively favoring the operation of the distribution network, requires taking full advantage of the capabilities of smart grid technologies. The power of handsets and other connected devices can essentially change business processes. Customer engagement leverages new tools to help driving the change. Engagement strategies need adjusting multiple delivery channels, including web and mobile applications. By using mobile social media technologies, utilities have numerous chances to ease and enrich the lives of their clients. Furthermore, in order to preserve long-term customer fidelity, utilities should transform themselves from energy suppliers to energy service advisors. Smart grids have the potential to benefit the whole value chain, but the market model must be redefined. To facilitate the emergence of the smart customer, service providers need to address several market challenges, such as the need to design for interoperability and to consider how to better integrate existing standards from different applications domains.
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