Excellence in Outage & Customer Communication for Utilities
20-21 March 2019
Charlotte, NC, United States of America
Dan Séguin, Manager of Media and Public Affairs at Hydro Ottawa will be presenting during the first day, 20th of March at 9:00 am.
Presentation topic: Leveraging Social Media, Video, and Smart Audio to Exceed Customer and Stakeholder Experience When the Lights Go Out
Presentation topic: Leveraging Social Media, Video, and Smart Audio to Exceed Customer and Stakeholder Experience When the Lights Go Out
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Demystifying the restoration and re-energizing process for stakeholders through pro-active communication
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Formulating outbound outage notifications prior to restoration and as soon as an outage is detected
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Automating outage notifications via Hootsuite to Twitter followers to save time and get ahead of stakeholders creating the narrative
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Incorporating outage notification capability into smart audio devices such as Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa
What our clients think of us
We pride ourselves at being responsive to our clients and incorporate feedback into our activities with our clients.
We pride ourselves at being responsive to our clients and incorporate feedback into our activities with our clients.
Dennis Lytle, Manager of Operations & Safety at Entergy
"Topics are current and beneficial. Networking opportunities have been outstanding"
Sarah Wood, Supervisor, Distribution Grid Operations at Toronto Hydro
“Knowledgeable experiences presenters sharing how they are managing common current challenges in pour industry”
© 2019 marcus evans north America
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Dan Sequin's presentation topic
An interview with Daniel Séguin, Manager of Media and Public Affairs at Hydro Ottawa
Ahead of the Excellence in Outage & Customer Communication for Utilities, we spoke with Daniel Séguin, Manager of Media and Public Affairs at Hydro Ottawa about preparing a crisis communications plan.
What would your best advice be for utilities when it comes to having the right plan of action during times of crisis?
The most important thing is having a solid plan that empowers the team to act quickly and cohesively. It is crucial that the messaging to all stakeholders – whether it be to media, customers or government officials – is both timely and consistent. The best advice that I can give utilities is to be first and to be human. You need to make sure that from the get-go you are the first out to tell the story and control the narrative. Speaking on behalf of Hydro Ottawa, outages are always considered as an opportunity for the utility. It’s a situation where your customers are a captive audience, and you have the ability to change their perceptions of your brand. Be responsive, but also human. Put yourself in the shoes of the affected customers, and ensure you are meeting their expectations.
What have been the biggest challenges internally at your organization when leveraging emerging technologies during a crisis?
The biggest challenge is to always speak with a consistent voice. This is the most important one because depending on what it’s the technology you are using (e.x. video, smart audio) you have to make sure that you are speaking at the same tone. Hydro Ottawa has a tone. What it that tone that you are using? During an event you also have to synchronize that approach in that consistent voice communicating the same “one truth.” All those channels have to be saying the same thing at the same time. If I’m not engaging with you year round in an honest two-way communication during an outage, you might not want to talk to me because you might not know who I am. You know the entity but you don’t have a relationship with your utility. If you have this ongoing conversation with customers over the past year you got a sense of who I’m or what I do so you are going to trust me during a period of crisis. The challenge is to maintain this two-way communication year around.
What has surprised you the most about customers’ reactions on social media when you are communicating about an outage?
I’m surprised about the velocity of the amplification for an issue. The customers’ reaction in any form can amplify an issue and the velocity that it travels through social media will make it viral and you don’t know the extent of the damage. We have seen cases that in a matter of minutes we had thousands of hundreds of people who were exposed to that content.
What is one interesting item about your professional career or current role that one might not know from looking at your bio or LinkedIn profile?
I delivered newspapers to get some extra money when I was a kid. I own and operate a commercial and advertising photography studio and I’m a trained commercial photographer. I shot the album cover of Alanis Morissette, a famous Canadian singer. I’m a Muay Thai practitioner.
What are you most looking forward to at the Excellence in Outage & Customer Communication for Utilities Conference this March 20-21, 2019 in Charlotte, NC?
I’m looking forward to networking opportunities and sharing best practices and lessons learned. Since our industry is a monopoly market we don’t compete with each other but we share best practices and emerging trends.
What would your best advice be for utilities when it comes to having the right plan of action during times of crisis?
The most important thing is having a solid plan that empowers the team to act quickly and cohesively. It is crucial that the messaging to all stakeholders – whether it be to media, customers or government officials – is both timely and consistent. The best advice that I can give utilities is to be first and to be human. You need to make sure that from the get-go you are the first out to tell the story and control the narrative. Speaking on behalf of Hydro Ottawa, outages are always considered as an opportunity for the utility. It’s a situation where your customers are a captive audience, and you have the ability to change their perceptions of your brand. Be responsive, but also human. Put yourself in the shoes of the affected customers, and ensure you are meeting their expectations.
What have been the biggest challenges internally at your organization when leveraging emerging technologies during a crisis?
The biggest challenge is to always speak with a consistent voice. This is the most important one because depending on what it’s the technology you are using (e.x. video, smart audio) you have to make sure that you are speaking at the same tone. Hydro Ottawa has a tone. What it that tone that you are using? During an event you also have to synchronize that approach in that consistent voice communicating the same “one truth.” All those channels have to be saying the same thing at the same time. If I’m not engaging with you year round in an honest two-way communication during an outage, you might not want to talk to me because you might not know who I am. You know the entity but you don’t have a relationship with your utility. If you have this ongoing conversation with customers over the past year you got a sense of who I’m or what I do so you are going to trust me during a period of crisis. The challenge is to maintain this two-way communication year around.
What has surprised you the most about customers’ reactions on social media when you are communicating about an outage?
I’m surprised about the velocity of the amplification for an issue. The customers’ reaction in any form can amplify an issue and the velocity that it travels through social media will make it viral and you don’t know the extent of the damage. We have seen cases that in a matter of minutes we had thousands of hundreds of people who were exposed to that content.
What is one interesting item about your professional career or current role that one might not know from looking at your bio or LinkedIn profile?
I delivered newspapers to get some extra money when I was a kid. I own and operate a commercial and advertising photography studio and I’m a trained commercial photographer. I shot the album cover of Alanis Morissette, a famous Canadian singer. I’m a Muay Thai practitioner.
What are you most looking forward to at the Excellence in Outage & Customer Communication for Utilities Conference this March 20-21, 2019 in Charlotte, NC?
I’m looking forward to networking opportunities and sharing best practices and lessons learned. Since our industry is a monopoly market we don’t compete with each other but we share best practices and emerging trends.
PRACTICAL CASE STUDIES
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Pioneer Best Practices of Customer Outreach via Multiple Channels and Methods with Gulf Power
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Prepare Mass Messaging Ahead of Issues, Including the Oncoming and Unanticipated with Duke Energy
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Generate Transparency but Maintaining Control Over the Amount of Information that is Shared with Georgia Power
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Analyze Effective Communication Strategies to Mitigate Negative Customer Sentiment via Tools and Tactics with Southern California Edison
EXPERT SPEAKER PANEL
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Becca Boles, Corporate Communications Director, Gulf Power
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Tomaso Giannelli, Senior Manager-Outage Management & Communications, Southern California Edison
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Sandy Buzzard, Digital Strategy Manager, Duke Energy
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Meredith Stone
Media & Crisis Communications Leader
Georgia Power Company
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Jim Salmon
Vice President
Holland Power Services
Why you should attend this marcus evans conference?
For registration pricing and multiple attendee discounts, please contact:
Melini Hadjitheori
melinih@marcusevanscy.com
