Members Prefer SMS Messaging
For Immediate Release:
April 1, 2020, Atlanta, GA — Apogee Interactive, Inc. announced today the striking success client Horry Electric Cooperative has achieved engaging their members with Short Message Service (SMS) or text messaging. Located on the South Carolina coast, and serving 85,543 members, Horry EMC is among the State’s fastest-growing residential communities. With a goal of engaging members in an ongoing dialogue about their energy use, and using a previously untapped communication channel, Horry chose Apogee Interactive’s Engagement Platform for Information and Communication (EPIC) to text message its members with personalized, relevant, time-sensitive messages.
Beginning in July 2019 with 7,000 (11 percent) of Horry’s member’s mobile numbers, Apogee began sending short, meaningful texts to members with specific calls-to-action including enrolling in rebate programs, seeing payment and rate options, reminding of beat-the-peak events, and sharing seasonal money-saving tips. Sending at a rate of 2 messages per month, more than 83,000 text messages were received by members producing a remarkable 97 percent positive feedback on the question, “do you feel this is an effective communication method?” And 95 percent of recipients requested continued to receive the messages Requests to be added to the program have brought the number of members receiving the text messages to 10,000 and is steadily rising.
According to Horry Electric’s Manager of Public Relations, Marketing and Energy Management, Penelope Hinson, “We are impressed that our members responded to this outreach with such profusely positive ratings and comments, like:
She added, “Each message contains a call-to-action designed to further engage and inform members about our services. An unanticipated result was use of our online energy calculators skyrocketed, an eight-fold increase over use the previous year.”
EPIC can also target certain groups of customers such as low income or customers who would specifically benefit from opting into a different rate option.
Apogee’s Chief Operations Officer, Jim Malcom, reports, “We are finding text messaging to be extraordinarily effective and universally well-received by customers. This ability to cost-effectively deliver customized messages to the target audience most likely to be receptive to the offer is changing the way utilities think about ongoing digital customer engagement.” Malcom continued, “We are seeing utilities that communicate with customers regularly with relevant messaging see higher customer satisfaction rankings and lower the cost to serve.”
Horry Electric is a Touchstone Energy® Cooperative. Touchstone Energy® Cooperatives is a national network of electric cooperatives across 46 states that provides resources and leverages partnerships to help member cooperatives and their employees better engage and serve their members. By working together, Touchstone Energy cooperatives stand as a source of power and information to their 30 million member-owners every day.
About Horry Electric Cooperative, Inc. Horry Electric was organized on April 24, 1940, with 627 charter members today the cooperative serves 85,543 members. As a not for profit, member-owned corporation, since 1941, Horry Electric is dedicated to providing information and energy-related services on a fair and equitable basis.
About Apogee Interactive, Inc. Apogee Interactive, Inc. is a privately held, woman-owned business and one of the nation’s leading full-service provider of proactive customer engagement SaaS services for utilities. As a partner with the utility industry since 1993, Apogee’s digital engagement platform delivers proactive, targeted, relevant, and personalized communication for hundreds of North American utilities, including some of the largest and most progressive, such as Southern Company, ConEd, LADWP, and Jackson EMC. For more information visit apogee.net or on LinkedIn.
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