Thought Leadership Series: Utility customer engagement and the uninformed response bias

What is customer engagement really telling us?

Over the last two decades, regulators in Australia and the UK have pushed utilities toward greater customer engagement, which has generally been well-received. However, there are concerns about its effectiveness. A key issue is that customers are often asked to engage on topics they know little about, leading to uninformed and biased responses. This can result in utilities misinterpreting data to justify decisions that may not serve customer interests.

Another concern is that reliance on customer engagement may cause important options to be overlooked. While tools like customer challenge panels can help, they have limitations. To improve engagement, it’s essential to assess whether respondents are informed and to clarify the purpose of engagement—whether it’s for information gathering, stakeholder management, or proposal review.