I have so often been impressed by the intelligent discussions and insights shared here, and thought I would attempt to tap into the “cognitive surplus” of HN for a customer experience advisory project I’m working on.<p>Based on my past experience in the energy space, I’ve been invited to be on an advisory team that is working with an electric utility consortium consisting of some of the largest utilities in the US. The purpose of the consortium is to envision a “day in the life” of a customer in the year 2020, and then to discuss strategies for providing the appropriate customer experience. There are to be a series of creation meetings that will be attended by senior executives of the member utilities, who are very open to hearing new ideas.<p>While some are better than others, utilities have often been criticized for the customer experience they provide, which is not entirely surprising given that they have traditionally referred to their customers as “rate payers”.<p>So, in terms of customer experience, both as it exists now and how it needs to improve, what would you suggest I tell them? In other words, if you were stuck in an elevator with the CEO of your utility, and he/she asked you how their organization’s customer experience needed to evolve over the next 8 years, what advice would you give? What needs to change? What needs to get better?