This was a best practices presentation from 2015 given to members of Chartwell Inc, a utility industry organization, on connecting brand strategy with customer experience

1. Place your chosen
image here. The four
corners must just
cover the arrow tips.
For covers, the three
pictures should be the
same size and in a
straight line.
Connecting our Brand with our Customer Experience
Kelly Carney @KellyCarneyUS
Rafael Sulit @RaffyInNY

2.  An international energy company based in the US and UK
 One of the world’s largest investor-owned utilities (Gas & Electric)
 19 million customers
 27,000 employees
Who is National Grid?

3. Structured for Success
Customer
Organization
Marketing &
Customer Experience
Brand
CEX
Events
Product Marketing
• Brand Marketing/Customer Comms
• Creative Services
• Social Media
• Customer Intelligence & Insights
• Website, Mobile, Text
• Customer Experience

4. Living the Promise

5. US Brand Strategy; Connecting to
Customers
5
Building the brand by building customer good will

6. “Wilson”: Tone & Persona
6
 Trustworthy and reliable
 Calm, comforting
 Friendly, approachable
 Tapped-in and knowledgeable
 Welcomed, not intrusive
Reactive Proactive
That sounds frustrating Let’s get that fixed
We’re here to help We’re working on it now
A rep should be in touch soon Expect a call from us at [ ]
We’ve forwarded your issue Here’s what we’re doing to fix this for you
Contact us again if you need help See you in the neighborhood

7. Utilize multiple channels to connect with our customers
Direct Mail and Print Outdoor Social MediaMobile Unique
FleetRadio Events and Sponsorships Employees
7
Connecting the Brand 360°

8. 2014: Identified Growing our Digital Brand
was Critical
Behaviors transformed Not just for youngSocial is exploding
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
18-29 30-49 50-64 65+
2008
2010
2013
Socialusers(%ofinternetusers)
2010 2013 % Chg
Digital 3:11 5:16 +66%
TV 4:24 4:31 +2%
Radio 1:36 1:26 (7)%
Print :50 :32 (36)%
Avgtimespentperday
2004
1.1B
$135B
2006
500M
$35B
2003
260M
$25B
Launch yr
# users
Mkt cap
 Customers increasingly leveraging digital channels each year
 1.9MM visitors go to nationalgridus.com monthly
 $1B in payments annually through website
 70k people follow National Grid on Social Media, double vs. prior year*
Charts Sources: emarketer (channel use), Pew Research Center (age),
* Includes Twitter, Facebook & Instagram
Fastest growing customer experience is digital
We’ve made progress, but still have a great opportunity to improve
8

9. Developed 360º Channel Ecosystem
9
Blog
Radio
Email
• Radio
• Email
• Website
• Mobile
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Connecting blog
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Communications awareness
• Direct, 1:1 communications geographically
• Central hub for digital; provide services and content
• Accessibility to high demand services and information
• Local connection during blue skies and storms;
community engagement
• 1-to-1 customer service and influencer engagement
• Thought leadership and recruitment
• Thought leadership conversations
• Video content hub that feeds other channels
• Photo content hosting and collection
Channel Key Channel Role

10. Digital Transformation Strategy:
A Journey
2014 2017
Building infrastructure and technology capabilities is critical to delivering on
an improved customer experience
Build Strategy
& Fix
Enhancements &
Full Integration
Foundations
10

11. Social Media Conversation Suite
11
Leverage technology and data to apply learnings in real time to both
proactively communicate and respond to customer needs
 Proactively Communicate
 Respond to customer needs

12. Social Customer Service Example
12

13. Moments that Matter
Receives Bill
Requires
Assistance –
Customer Care
Experience an
Outage / Storm
Hear about Cost
Changes
13
 Great opportunity to connect with customers through our Brand:
Storm & Billing Moments

14. RI Storm August 2015
 Significant, sudden & fast moving storm
knocked out power to 121k customers
 Consistent communication to our
customers during this time was
important
 90% of customers were restored within
48 hours

15. 15
Connecting through
Website, Mobile, Social & E-mail
Web Highlights
 Over 1.4 million unique visits to our website over the
course of this 4 day storm
 500k visits to our website on first day of storm
Mobile Highlights
 Visits to mobile website up 31% in August v July
 August had 48% more outages reported on mobile
than the average outage reports for FY16
Email Highlights
 Over 170K million emails sent to customers in RI
 Over 93K emails opened; 37% open rate
Social Highlights
 Added 429 new followers
 Positive sentiment above target
 Customer Thank You Rate” above target at 41%

16. Engaging in the Conversation
through Social
16

17. Place your chosen
image here. The four
corners must just
cover the arrow tips.
For covers, the three
pictures should be the
same size and in a
straight line.
Case Study: High Winter Bills & Solutions

18. Upstate NY High Bills
Challenge
 Record high commodity prices in UNY in 2013 lead to significant
increases in customer winter bills
 Prices were forecasted to increase again Winter 2014; estimated
to again impact customer trust in NG
Opportunity
 Utilize Bill Education study to drive communications that are
relevant to customers
 Proactively communicate with customers to help them prepare
and take action while mitigating erosion of customer sentiment
and brand reputation

19. Strategic Approach
 Acknowledge
 Educate
 Provide Options & Solutions
Set a plan to deliver coordinated, relevant and proactive efforts to address customer
and various stakeholders at critical times, through numerous methods and channels
Collaborate
Set the tone and
timing for messaging
Use a full strategic
channel approach to
deliver various
communications
Messaging Objectives Communication Plan

20. Proactive Customer Outreach
■ Advertising
■ Direct Customer Contact
■ Web Site & Digital
■ Social Media
20
Energy Efficiency Billboards
Social Media
Customer Newsletter
MA
Web Page
Pop Up Graphic
Winter Bills Web Page

21. Strategic Stakeholder Communications
 Media outreach
 Employee communications
 Customer Service
 Government/Community
relations
 Public Webinars
21
MA
Customer
Q&A
UNY Television
Interview
Print Ad to
Promote
Brockton
Event

22. Consistent Customer Outreach
22

23. Impacts and positive outcomes
23
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
Q4 '13 Q1 '14 Q2 '14 Q3 '14 Q4 '14 Q1 '15 Q2 '15
Recovery in Trust Advice for Res UNY
Winter Electric
Commodity Price
Impact Post campaign
Recovery
While High Bills negatively impacted customer sentiment and brand reputation eroded
by negative bill impact; reputation recovered post Bill Help Campaign Launch

24. Key Lessons Learned
 Brand and CEX, CEX and Brand
 One Voice | 360°| Moments That Matter
 Proactive all year long
 Channel ecosystem and persona are critical
 Connect insights into action to be predictive