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What You’ll Learn
Jackson EMC’s Kerri Testement shares how an audit sparked a communications overhaul, starting with new member emails. Hear how an ongoing new member survey shapes targeted messaging for both new and longtime members, and walk away with a practical starting point for turning your emails into targeted storytelling tools.
Guest Speaker
Kerri Testement
Show Notes
Transcripts are lightly edited for clarity and readability.
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Megan Mckoy-Noe: How can you email value to consumers? That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of StoryConnect, A Pioneer Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Megan McKoy-Noe, one of the storytellers at Pioneer Utility Resources, and I'm joined by Kerri Testement, manager of member communications at Jackson EMC in North Georgia. Now y'all serve a little more than 278,000 members. So I can imagine how challenging your role has to be managing member communications for that many members. But let's talk about emails. Every utility sends them, mostly bills, right? But are we sending messages that folks care about? And this is something that you and I, we were hanging out at Jackson EMC a few weeks ago talking about this, and you said some really cool things that y'all are doing at Jackson that I wanted to share with folks. So, Kerri, what kind of emails have y'all been sending to members before you overhauled your communications in 2024?
Kerri Testement: Yeah. So like every other electric utility, of course we were sending bills.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: I love that.
Kerri Testement: Oh, yeah. So that was the primary method that we were sending. Really just very transactional communication with members via email. So bills, and then also, anytime we had major storms approaching, we would send out a mass email to members, let them know the storm is approaching steps they could take to prepare. Steps we were taking to prepare, and then kind of the resolution of the storm aftermath, letting them know how that would happen. So that was really all that we were sending before. And as you mentioned, our service area is pretty big. So we're outside of metro Atlanta, ten counties, pretty diverse. We've got members who are in townhouses and apartment complexes all the way out to farms and very rural areas, kind of stretching into that metro Atlanta, Gwinnett County area. We also have a lot of folks that are coming and going pretty quickly. But we've seen a large, you know, growth in our membership over the past few years. And we kind of recognized that we weren't doing the best job that we could reaching those new members kind of rolling out the welcome mat. So before then, we were really sending out a paper, you know, piece of, it was a small brochure of our services. And we recognized that there were probably better ways of doing that. So we do a regular member communication audit every couple of years with our members. And that was one of the questions we asked is, "Hey, are we doing a good job when it comes to welcoming you to the co-op?" And there was a huge opportunity there. Members overwhelmingly said that they want more communication in that onboarding process. So that's where all of this started.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: And there's the opportunity there. They actually want to hear from you, which is always nice to hear, I think. Sometimes we feel like we're communicating too much. And also kudos to your team for saying, hey, we've been doing it like this for a long time. I love that y'all have your regular audits just to check in with members and say, what could we do better? I think it's a really important thing that not a lot of us take the time to do. And maybe we're small teams. Y'all are blessed that you have a lot of folks on your team, but you know, it is good to check in with folks every now and then and just say, "Hi, is this working?"
Kerri Testement: And we do those about every three years. And the reason being is we all know this like our own personal communication preferences change. So case in point, things have changed a lot since the pandemic. It used to be before the pandemic, who was scanning QR codes? None of us. How often are you scanning a QR code now? Probably every day. Every time you go to the restaurant. I know it's a lot.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Like give me a paper menu, please.
Kerri Testement: I know, I know. That's still one thing for me. I'm like, I don't like the QR code thing in a restaurant. But other places I'm cool with.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Yeah. I like being able to get the information right away for other stuff. If I'm passing it by and I say, "Oh, that's interesting. Let me scan that," so I can do it. But yeah.
Kerri Testement: We did see that in the com audit that members were now more open to getting emails where before the pandemic, people didn't want as many emails. And I think that the pandemic just changed the way that we interact and communicate with organizations and industries and businesses and folks around us. I also use the example, I don't know about you, but I have family members who before the pandemic, they were very anti-social media. Post-pandemic, they are cool with hanging out on Facebook all day long. So people's preferences change. So that's why we do the communication audit every few years, you know. Tell us the ways that we can be the most effective with you for getting the information you want in the time and manner that you want.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Yeah, just asking them, just opening that conversation I think is huge. What were some of the biggest surprises in your last communications audit? Things that you didn't expect. I know you said that they want more, which is great. Was there anything else that stood out that surprised you?
Kerri Testement: So definitely the email thing, as I mentioned, that was a pretty, pretty wide thing. The other thing is we still send out our member newsletter. It's called JEMCO News every month. So we mail that to members and members overwhelmingly said that they were reading a good portion of that. So as someone who's involved in that project, as the, you know, editor of JEMCO news, it was great to hear that when people receive stuff from the co-op, that they were actually looking and engaging and aware of what we were sending. So the awareness level was pretty high, so that was surprising to me.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Oh, I love that. Yeah. And just as a curiosity, and we hadn't talked about this before, but how did you all send out the audit?
Kerri Testement: So different methods. So the communication audit is done in three different phases. So we do send out email surveys to members. We also participate in what's called a front porch forum in which it's basically like an online, yep, an online community forum. We give members who participate some tasks to do. And we get a lot of great feedback from all of that, the online forum. And then we also do in-person focus groups. Those are so interesting, and I'm such a nerd for those, you know.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: You're among nerds here. It's okay. Tell us more.
Kerri Testement: It's always interesting going to those because we do it in a facility that's the traditional – it's in Gwinnett – but it's a traditional, I guess, survey research area. So you've got the members who've come in agreeing to participate in the in-person focus groups. And then those of us from Jackson EMC, we're kind of behind the wall, you know, the glass mirror, like you see –
Megan Mckoy-Noe: You had the glass, the one way see through glass?
Kerri Testement: Yes. And so, and they know that we're there. They know. But I love just being the fly on the wall and just listening to everyone kind of ping off of each other and say things. And, there's always been like these great moments of someone sharing, well, hey, I've been on budget billing for the past few years. And it's great because I pay the same amount each month. And someone else will say, really? I wasn't aware of such a thing. So and at the same time too, you also get some wayward conversations that I have been a couple times behind the glass screaming like. [inaudible] But I want to hear what you think about that.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: You don't have like a button you can push like the voice of God coming in. Tell us more about this experience.
Kerri Testement: We can text the moderator and kind of say, "Hey, ask them a few more questions about that topic," and he'll do that. But yeah, in a nerdy, geeky way, it's actually a lot of fun.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Yeah, no, that would be especially the glass. That would be fun to see all that unfolding. All right, so you have this amazing member comms audit that you do every three years, which I love and would encourage other folks to do, if you can, just to find out what members think. And then you hear they want better emails. Talk to me about the welcome journey and the survey that you added for new members.
Kerri Testement: Yep. So as I mentioned before, we had a brochure that we used to mail out to members.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: And a lot of folks have that.
Kerri Testement: Yep, and we –
Megan Mckoy-Noe: The new member packet or welcome packet kind of a thing.
Kerri Testement: And we got some feedback that they really weren't looking at that that much. So we said, well, how can we revamp this? And, the email idea was one of those things that came up. And so in terms of developing the welcome journey, we said, well, let's kind of stretch this out a little bit to multiple emails that new members can receive. So once they come on, once they come online with our services, about a week later, they get a welcome email that says, hey, glad you've joined Jackson EMC. We would love to hear from you about what kind of services you would love to hear or learn more about. If they agree to do that, there's a little survey link on there. It's a quick like five minute survey. Tell us what you want to learn more about could be about budget billing, prepay, energy efficiency rebates. All of that is on there. They can just do a very quick click. Takes about 2 to 3 minutes to complete. Once they complete that, they then get a 30 mil, which is their personalized response to that. So hey Kerri, you clicked on EV's, you clicked on ways to pay, you clicked on energy efficiency. Here's more information about each of those three things. So it's been great because we can see what members want to learn more about. And then from there, we can also track that journey. Hey, someone was interested in budget billing, and they went to the website, and then they signed up for budget billing. So it's a true journey funnel, if you will, of learning what members want.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: I love that so much. Now it's optional for them to click that, so what is that survey response been like? And then what kind of information are they most interested in?
Kerri Testement: So the response has been really well. I will say it does help to encourage a little bit with an incentive. So for us, if you complete the survey, you're entered in a drawing every month. We pick out five winners to get a credit on their bill. So a $50 bill credit for a future month. I think that's been very helpful for encouraging members to get that. And we're just seeing that at the beginning of their journey with Jackson EMC, they just want more information.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Yeah, it's the best time to reach out to them. They're thinking about you.
Kerri Testement: Oh it's great. And so they not only complete the survey that has those data points of which services they want, but there's also opportunities for them to put some comments in. Just very blank comments. Overwhelmingly, they've been really positive because they are so early in the journey. The overwhelming thing that we hear is how smooth the process is, getting started with Jackson EMC and then also our member service reps how welcoming and friendly. And now, we're starting to see a lot more of like the comments that I spoke to an actual human.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Like, who knew that would be uncommon in this day and age?
Kerri Testement: Yes, they, you know, you're like, hey, it was great to speak to a human being that was kind and friendly and was not AI. So we're seeing more and more of those comments. The other thing that I think has been interesting to me reading those comments is when members get that survey, depending on their email platform, how they see things, we have a good number of members who speak Spanish. And so they are responding to the survey in Spanish. And it's great just to see, you know, where they are and where people are at to get all that information too.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: So then if they set their preference as Spanish, do you have versions of all the emails in Spanish for them?
Kerri Testement: We don't have different versions. That's just how it appears in their email browser, not browser, but, you know, platform. But the fact that they're responding back in their native language is really interesting. Yeah.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Now, sometimes when I'm shopping and I go to a certain website and decide not to buy something, they remind me that I wanted it. Do you have any follow up emails? If somebody has talked about budget billing? They indicated, hey, this is something I'm interested in. But then they don't sign up. Do you have a follow up email that finds those folks and reminds them in like five months, six months?
Kerri Testement: We don't have that automated, but we have set up several campaigns every few months or so. We'll kind of roll that out to more members. You know, the budget billing example, that's one of those things that we've done. Prepay same thing, same deal too. You know, hey, let's look back on the new member survey and all the members who said that they want that information, but they haven't enrolled, we've sent those emails out to them. And some of those have been incentivized too. You know, same deal. If you enroll in this, you get a gift card or whatever little incentive. It just, it depends on what we want.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: What a beautiful way, though, to have that targeted. You know, it's something that they are interested in already. They haven't done it yet. That's a great pool of folks to be able to reach with those campaigns. So I love that y'all are doing that. Now outside of these targeted emails, how else are y'all using the survey data? Is there anything else that you're doing? You've got the campaigns going.
Kerri Testement: We definitely use it a lot for internal communication in terms of where we should be focusing on when it comes to programs and services. So case in point, cooperative solar. That's our, some folks call it community solar, with their, you know, utility. Doesn't matter. But that has been really interesting just to kind of see what kind of feedback we're getting from that. And then how does that translate to enrollment? So a lot of conversations internally about how can you leverage that program a little bit more? How can you augment what you're already doing elsewhere outside of the email campaigns? So yeah, we've been taking that data and using it that way.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: I love that. So, Kerri, you have mentioned all the ways that the survey has strengthened your member communications. And I love that it's also informing your internal communications as well. That's like bonus. You mentioned that you're sharing some of this with the team. How else? Just talk to us about how you're sharing all the survey results with your staff, because you all have a really large staff. So do you have an automated way that you're sharing that? Do you have like a member meeting or a staff meeting where you all are getting together to talk about the results?
Kerri Testement: So we do get all the data fed into some of the dashboards that we use internally. We love dashboards here, so.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Who doesn't?
Kerri Testement: There's lots of dashboards. So the data that does come in for all of our email campaigns, not just the new member campaign feed into a power BI dashboard that we look at. And there is a team of folks that looks at member communication data points. Every usually about once a quarter or so, we're looking at that and having conversations about what are members telling us that we need to focus on, and what can we do next? And so all the information from these email campaigns is part of the, you know, all the dashboards that we look at. But, I will say that since we've been rolling and going a little bit better now with things, I think I'm trying to do a better job relaying back to our internal clients. What do these campaigns mean? So, you know, sometimes we'll send out some of these emails, not just the new member survey, but some of our other subsequent campaigns. And, I wasn't always reporting back to the department heads like, hey, a certain number of folks signed up, a certain number of folks opened the emails. And now I make that part of my regular project management task. So, we do use CoSchedule. We used to use Basecamp for our project management tool. And that's one of those things I've built in. Usually about a week or so after an email is sent out, I'll log in, look at the analytics, weigh in a little bit of what people are saying and doing, and then report that back internally to the departments, the SMEs. And that's been something I've had to learn as a lesson learned of just doing a better job, letting folks know, hey, that campaign did great. We need to leverage that a little bit more in the future. So, I would say if anyone's looking at email campaigns, always add that to your to do list. About a week after the email sent out, two weeks later, look at the analytics and report it back to all of the relevant folks in your organization.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: That's super smart. And you're right, sometimes we have so many things that we're working on that we send it out, and then we just move on to the next task. But if you take a minute, measure what you're doing and then report back, it's going to make, that's such an important part so that it's not just throwing things out into the void. You're seeing what sticks so that you can better inform what you're doing next. So I love that you are doing that now. Now, we've talked a lot about the survey that you have with new members and how that's informing everything. But for members that are not new, how are you making sure that the emails they get deliver value too?
Kerri Testement: So we did take kind of the foundation of the new member survey, and we revamped it for what we're going to say, existing members. So essentially, any member who did not get this campaign as a new member, we started back dating the survey. So like I said, it was revamped for existing members, and we've been gradually sending that out to our existing members. Kind of going backwards in time, if that makes sense, just to be able to batch everything together. So we also get survey results from those folks. Some of the results a little bit different in terms of what people want to know about. I was surprised with the new member side how many people want to learn about paperless billing. Like that's just one of those things. Like really paperless billing? Like that's the very first thing you want to learn about? But that's not the case with existing members. They want to learn more about rebates. They want to learn more about our senior discount was something that was also a little surprising so.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Senior discount?
Kerri Testement: Yep. So if you're a senior citizen, and you can qualify for that program. It's just, it's a little discount off their bill so. People want to learn more about that. So that's always great feedback to hear from members.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Yeah. And I love that you're going back in time. How far has the Delorean taken you so far?
Kerri Testement: Yeah, I just was making a back to future response myself. Great Scott, so. I'll have to go back and double check, but we're probably about two years back at this point from our starting point, the new member survey to the existing members, so.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Okay.
Kerri Testement: Keeps on going.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Yeah, it does. I like that you're incorporating that, and going back in time, to bring those in. It'll be really interesting when you get back five years, ten years, when you have folks that have been through, had a lot of lived experiences with Jackson EMC too. So I'm excited to see how that goes. Now I again, you and I were hanging out talking, and it was I got really excited about this. If a utility listening in is excited too which we hope they are. It's the whole purpose of StoryConnect at the podcast, but if a utility wants to turn members or subscriber emails into a more targeted, more value driven storytelling tool, where should they start?
Kerri Testement: I actually think the new member experience is a great way to do it. There's so many opportunities to roll out and to share your story with your new members. And they are certainly receptive to hearing that they want to learn your story. They want to learn more about you, and they want to learn how you can help them. So, I actually think if you're going to focus on starting any type of email campaign platform or anything like that, start with your new members. There's so many opportunities to roll that out. I know other utilities, they also do drip campaigns. That's another thing too. So, the new member audience, I think is a great, great, great first start audience to start with.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: And for folks who don't know what a drip campaign is, can you explain that for us?
Kerri Testement: Yep. So, you can basically kind of segment your, some of your stories. So if you want to let folks know how your refunds work or capital credits, we call them member refunds for Jackson EMC, but you can explain that. That's a great story to tell. Members love hearing about that, and the value it adds. You can let them know about rebates. You can then let them know about their billing options or their ways to pay options. You can let them know, hey, our local offices, and oh, by the way, we have local offices. There's not as many organizations that you can do that with anymore. But we're open. We're here. You can come see us. If you're having any issues with your account or ways we can help you. So, there's just, there's so many great chances to tell your story through a drip campaign.
Megan Mckoy-Noe: Yeah. No, I love that so much. And Kerri, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story with utility pioneers. She is Kerri Testement from Jackson EMC, and I'm your host, Megan McKoy-Noe at Pioneer. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.
Outro: StoryConnect is a production of Pioneer Utility Resources. Send questions to hello@pioneer.coop and learn more about our member-owned marketing agency at pioneer.coop.