Customer satisfaction is more important than ever under changing regulatory rules, more extreme weather and the growth of self generation options and alternative players in the market. Utility brands – not just the core service they provide – must be more fully integrated into their customer’s lives than ever before.

As a specific example, millennials are the largest generational cohort in the history of the U.S. and provide utilities with a unique opportunity to reinvent themselves. They are concerned about climate change, hungry for clean energy and readily embrace smart home technology. Consultancy Accenture has found that if utilities can’t rise to the challenge, the millennial generation is more likely than any other age group to take their energy business elsewhere without a second thought.