Learning and earning our way to member loyalty
People expect companies today to be approachable, helpful, and even purposeful — almost like we expect of each other. As technologies like voice command, automation, and artificial intelligence become more ubiquitous in our daily lives, these expectations become even more common [see: Google]. As a result, we apply common human feelings and responses to these companies, their products, and services. We love them, hate them, and love to hate them. And for a special few, we are loyal to them. We support them and are becoming more and more comfortable sharing our feelings and preferences with them — but only when we trust them to have our best interests at heart.
Inspire strives for this kind of relationship with our members. We love them, and we know that for them to love us back, we have to earn it. Like a best friend or a sibling (or a pet), we want to know our members well enough to anticipate their wants and needs, to make their lives easier — so they can focus on what matters most to them. We put our money where our mouth is with our subscription plan and its flat monthly price structure. If members use more energy than we expect, we absorb all the risk. If we’re able to help members use less energy in simple ways, we both win. This model keeps the member at the very top of our minds — creating incentive for us to understand what’s most important to our members, and really study how they interact with our products, programs, and communications.
Inspire’s system is smart. With a bit of information, we can solve major problems. With a home’s address, we can eliminate price uncertainty and guarantee one flat monthly rate. With access to smart devices in the home, like a thermostat, we can find opportunities to reduce energy usage with precise, imperceptible changes to a home’s temperature. Soon, with information about our members’ homes, the people who live in them, and how they live their lives, Inspire can make their homes truly “smart” — without breaking the bank.
That’s what Inspire’s data science and analytics engine can do — the more information you feed it, the smarter it becomes, and the more value it delivers to both Inspire members and Inspire itself. Because of this and our aligned incentive structure, Inspire is willing to pay (so to speak) for member information, access, and actions. And we’ve learned that how we pay matters just as much as what we’re paying for. It’s part of the trust building process, and the design of our programs. Sometimes new hardware is what members want, other times it’s cash, or contributions to a favorite charity. These are all tools we can use to delight and build trust with our members — to earn their loyalty.
Design matters too, which is why we study and employ behavioral science principles in our loyalty program design. Understanding concepts like default bias, gamification, and decision paralysis is central to our success as loyalty designers. It’s a tall order to ask people to really care about the energy in their homes. We understand that quality of life often comes first, that members’ time and hard-earned dollars are sometimes a higher priority than what wind farm they’re supporting through Inspire. If we ignore these preferences, we miss an opportunity to design a program that proves to our members that we’re aware of their values and the lives they lead.
By using concepts like nudge theory, we act as decision architects to make participation seamless and positive. With our subscription loyalty program, Reduce & Redeem, Inspire pays members to use less energy each month. If a member beats his or her monthly forecast three times, we automatically reduce their next energy supply bill by one-third. Sign-up is on an opt-out basis; everyone’s automatically enrolled. Small program design component, big impact on participation.
As we expand our loyalty programs, we want to continue to make it easy to get rewarded. We’ll reward members just for being members, or for downloading our app, for telling us if they have a pool or just bought an EV, or for referring a friend. We’re just getting started, and the opportunities are endless. We’re at the early stages of designing loyalty programs, but we’re confident that through a combination of aligned incentives, thoughtful design, tight feedback loops, and active listening, we’ll be able to earn the trust of our members and reward them with the things they care most about — and in doing so, continue to build our connected movement towards a brighter energy future.
