With Great Power - Tara Seavers on building real trust with customers

Tara Seavers on building real trust with customers

11/29/22 • 19 min

This summer, a combination of extreme heat and soaring natural gas prices hit electricity customers hard along the gulf coast. And Tara Seavers had a front row seat.

Tara oversees the customer experience at Entergy. And this was one of the highest-stakes customer problems imaginable. Record numbers of people were calling the utility with a dire choice: do they buy groceries or pay their utility bills?

Tara and the Entergy executive team jumped into action, creating a “bold and aggressive” plan to relieve the financial burden on customers. It’s one example of the connection that Tara’s team is forging between the utility and the people it serves.

“I'm not in the business of just getting a piece of paper or an email to a customer. I want folks to feel confident [in the utility]. That's important to me, and I think it's important to customers,” explains Tara.

This week: the shifting utility-customer experience. Inflation, extreme weather, digitization, distributed energy are all changing expectations around how power companies interact with and serve their customers.

Brad talks with Entergy's Tara Seavers about how this is playing out in the American south.

This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

This summer, a combination of extreme heat and soaring natural gas prices hit electricity customers hard along the gulf coast. And Tara Seavers had a front row seat.

Brad talks with Entergy's Tara Seavers about how this is playing out in the American south.

This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Previous Episode

Carlos Nouel is making the “new stuff” normal

When smart meters came on the scene, the industry talked about them in transformational ways. And while smart meters have given utilities more insights into the distribution grid through digitization, they haven't transformed grid management, or the customer experience.

That's why Carlos Nouel decided he needed a new type of meter – one that could recognize every single device in the home. With this level of information, he believed utilities could offer better insights to customers that would save more energy and money.

Carlos is the Vice President of Transformation Programs at National Grid. Part of his job is educating customers to make better energy choices. The other part of his job is offering them personalized experiences to make it as easy as possible to change their behavior.

This week, Brad speaks with Carlos about how he makes this a reality at National Grid. How can utilities make cutting-edge technologies just a normal part of operations?

This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Next Episode

How utilities can help sell more electric cars

The grid is no longer the biggest source of carbon emissions in America. It's transportation.

Electric vehicles are a key part of decarbonizing the transportation sector – making utilities an important force in growing EV adoption.

Electric cars will create a new opportunity for power providers to scale their business. But first, they need to get people to buy them. And that's where people like Karl Popham come in.

“The mindset is how can we get EVs to your customers as quickly as possible and as profitable for the salesperson as possible,” explains Karl, who is manager of electric vehicles and emerging technologies at Austin Energy.

This week, Brad speaks with Karl about Austin Energy’s work in making electric cars as accessible as possible by taking a dealership-centric approach.

This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.