Sales Wigets Increase Web Traffic, Engage Customers and Reduce Acquistion Costs With Easily Implemented Web Popups

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MAISY APPS

Utility AI-Powered Customer Sustainability and Energy Cost/Emissions Benchmarking Widgets Install easily as a button on your Web site Provide your customers with a comparison of their sustainability score, electricity costs and carbon emissions with similar customers in their area Show customer cost and sustainability impacts based on target energy cost reductions Increase customer satisfaction with one of the lowest cost outreach programs available Do not require you to provide customer billing or other information Provide automated email reports on each user session Reduce system peak by emphasizing recommendations that reduce peak period electricity use Increase utility program visibility Provide both residential and commercial benchmarking Provide electric only or electric and natural gas for combination utilities These AI-powered applications use just a few household/dwelling unit or business to estimate energy use and emissions for any dwelling unit/commercial business in the US. The apps also provide peer cost and emissions comparisons and present information on savings available with energy efficiency improvement targets. The apps apply an AI k-nearest neighbor (KNN) analysis along with regression refinements where dwelling units or businesses from master databases are identified as belonging in the user’s “neighborhood” with a weighted distance measure that includes household/dwelling unit or business characteristics. Energy use and emissions from the nearest neighbors provide the basis for estimating the App user’s energy use and emissions. The master database includes energy use and emissions for more than 7 million households and businesses across the US. Utility Customer Cost Benchmarking Widget Details are described in more detail below:
		Utility Customer Benchmarking Analytics
MAISY Energy Benchmarking Widgets provide cost and carbon emission comparisons for individual utility customers based on energy use analysis of the more than 7 million US individual commercial and residential utility customer records in the MAISY Energy Use and Hourly Loads Databases. The analytical process includes the following steps: Web visitors click on a “Perform Energy Cost Benchmarking” button or link on your Web site A popup window appears (as a small window in front of your Web page) and the visitor selects either the “Residential” or “Commercial” button option Web visitors enter an estimate of their annual electricity costs and characteristics of their dwelling unit, occupancy and appliances and click on the “continue” button Benchmarking results are shown: the visitor’s electricity cost is scored against other similar utility customers in the same ZIP code area as a percentile. Your utility customer’s annual electricity cost is compared to those of similar customers in the MAISY Energy Use Database in the same ZIP code. Residential customers are matched with a sample of customers with similar square footage, demographics, income, electric appliance holdings and other factors to provide an accurate assessment of where each customer’s costs fall within the range of similar customers. Commercial customer business type, floor space, operating hours, heating fuels, etc provide similarly unique benchmarking results. A comparison of carbon emissions generated by similar utility customers is also provided. Your utility customer visitor can select a target percentile to see how much their cost and carbon emissions would be reduced if they met the best x% of similar utility customers. The next popup Widget page shows cost and carbon emissions savings with the new target and offers an option to (1) select another target savings and redo the analysis, (2) review energy savings options or (3) to contact you if you have customer assistance regarding efficiency options, or (4) any other routing that you prefer. At the end of the session, the popup window closes and the user is right back on your Web page where they were when they clicked on the first Widget button, or the user can be directed to any Web page you like
		Boost Utility Customer Satisfaction
Utility Customer Cost Benchmarking Widgets bolster customer satisfaction by providing three resources that utility customers consistently rank as important: Information provided on energy-saving ideas Efforts to support green programs that impact the environment Personalized customer information The customer centric nature of Widget benchmarking (comparison with similar customers and customized energy-savings suggestions) are especially valuable in making customers “feel like the utility cares about me.”
		Accuracy and Cost Advantages of the MAISY Energy App Widget
A variety of approaches have been used over the last decade to inform utility customers of their electricity use, typically with a monthly comparison. Several resource are available that purport to show individual utility customers energy use relative to similar customers. The problem with all of these options is that they do not accurately reflect “similar customers.” For example the EPA provides a residential energy use comparison ool (https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=home_energy_yardstick.showgetstarted ) that is incredibly inaccurate. The tool uses detail on ZIP code; dwelling unit square footage, number of occupants, and the last 12 months of utility. The EPA tool converts energy use to a source BTU basis that exaggerates the impact of electricity use (by counting production, transmission and distribution losses) so that an all-electric home always uses more BTU’s than an identical home with natural gas space heating, water heating, etc. The source BTU comparison plus the fact that comparions are not accurate if electric uses such as pool pumps, heat pump versus resistance heating, etc are ignored. Several firms have partnered primarily with large utilities to provide customer comparisons that incorporates customer list data from commercial list sources such as square feet, age of dwelling unit, number of occupants. These applications also fall short in accuracy because much of the customer list data is estimated, not actual (e.g., number of occupants) while important contributors to electricity use such as space heating fuel, presence of a pool or spa, water heating fuel and other items are not available from customer list sources. MAISY Utility Customer Cost Benchmarking Widgets provide the most accurate and most relevant electricity cost benchmarking available because Utility customers specify all important electricity using equipment, dwelling unit and occupant characteristics to provide apples to apples comparisons The comparison with similar customers is based on more than 7 million+ MAISY Residential Energy Use Database with a matching process that ensures comparisons with similar customers with respect to important electricity using equipment, dwelling unit and occupant characteristics Electricity and carbon emissions savings associated with reduced electric use targets are drawn from comparable customers Accuracy of the MAISY Residential Energy Use Database information has been vetted by more than one hundred individual utility applications. MAISY Utility Customer Cost Benchmarking Widgets also provide the most cost effective customer benchmarking by relying on the MAISY Residential Energy Use Database and a low cost SAS pricing model.
		Extended Utility Customer Benchmarking
The MAISY Energy Benchmarking Widget is designed to operate independently of your utility's customer information. The benchmarking process uses each visitor's information on their electricity cost and dwelling unit, occupant and appliance characteristics to compare their cost to a range of similar customers in the MAISY Utility Customer Database in that ZIP code. Typical electricity use profiles for various end uses such as space heating, air conditioning, water heating and so on are used to identify savings opportunities. for each end use. These savings data are used to suggest typical savings associated with various energy savings measures. An extended Widget option applies a summary subset of your utility billing data to automatically incorporate a user's electricity cost by entering an account number. The billing data is also used in the Widget software to develop a statistical estimate of customer space heating, air conditioning and non-weather sensitive electricity use as a basis for suggested energy savings options. This extension can be applied at any time after implementing the standard Widget process. Billing data items for each customer include account number, and electric bill, kWh use, and billing date for each of the last 12 months (these limited data items protect your customer's confidential information as the only identifying characteristics is an account number.)
		Receive Unique Real-Time Email Reports for Each Widget Participant
Each time a visitor engages the Sales Widget, you will be sent an email notification. Visitors can also opt into providing providing analytics for that Web visitor. Use this information to evaluate the extent to which your Web visitors are engaging and their characteristics to improve your customer outreach programs.

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