Case Study: ESB Smart Energy Services
Spotlight on Customer Value Propositions
Situation
Changing times; competitive marketplace; radical transformation of customer requirements. This was the challenge for Irish electricity giant, ESB, in the UK market.
ESB, has supplied electricity in the UK for over 28 years. However, the Smart Energy Services Division is seen as ‘new to the market’ by many industry, energy, and sustainability managers. Frustrated that their impressive track record for innovative smart energy solutions was not gaining traction, the team appointed Futurecurve to help them align and differentiate their customer value propositions, to be heard above the noise of a crowded, competitive UK marketplace.
Activity
Authentic and differentiated value propositions are critical to attract potential customers particularly when a brand has limited recognition in a marketplace. In Ireland, ESB is a household name, consumer and business customers alike have an affinity with the ESB brand and the customer value proposition is already part of a potential buyer’s psyche.
In a new market, where potential buyers had little or no relationship with the ESB brand, the customer value proposition has to work that much harder. Marketing and Sales need to be able to demonstrate clearly the difference and value ESB can make to the customers world and attract potential buyers through their marketing.
To achieve this, Futurecurve brought the ‘outside in’ using in-depth market and customer research and analysis, and marrying this with the ‘inside out’ perspective from the sales and marketing team, mapping products and services against what customers really value.
The process involved an in-depth review of external industry research reports, current marketing and sales materials, plus a series of qualitative interviews with customers, sales, and marketing team members. Drawing on Futurecurve’s own knowledge of the Energy market, we developed a new market positioning and customer value proposition underpinned with a set of new value propositions for key industry sectors, product and service offerings and recommended communication channels.
Outcome
With clarity and a shared perspective, the ESB Smart Energy Services team is building on its solid foundation in the UK, communicating the authentic customer value rather than using the ‘what we do and how we do it’ messaging used by competitors. This shift in market positioning differentiates their customer value proposition, enabling the creation of a new set of value messages targeting customer needs and opportunities within industry sectors and those buying products and services.
This hierarchy of customer value propositions is being applied to all sales and marketing content for the UK including the website, exciting industry sector campaigns sales and marketing materials, and other customer touch points such as social media.
“Futurecurve really stepped up to our challenge. They quickly gained insight into our target markets, created alignment across our marketing and sales teams, and generated value propositions that will have high impact with our target customers. We actually commissioned Futurecurve just before the COVID19 crisis and agreed a comprehensive work programme to deliver on our objectives. This programme included various stakeholder engagement via workshops and 1:1 meetings. However, COVID19 saw our world turn into a virtual environment and Futurecurve were really agile and reformatted work programmes to get the robust outcome which met our various stakeholders’ approval.”