Uplight Continues Performance as Leading Provider of Utility Marketplaces with Record Holiday Sales
The utility partner of the clean energy transition broke records with perfected operations, seamless delivery and outstanding customer experience.
BOULDER, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Uplight, the technology partner for energy providers transitioning to the clean energy ecosystem, has solidified its place as the premier provider of utility marketplaces, blowing away expectations of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales of carbon-reducing and energy-saving products. After spending 12 years fine-tuning its Marketplace, Uplight confidently offers utility customers the most affordable, accessible and easy-to-install devices on the market, with bundled enrollment opportunities to maximize each customer interaction.
Uplight’s more than 30 utility partners are using unsurpassed scale to activate customers into purchasing energy saving devices and connecting them to the clean grid at higher rates than ever. This November, Uplight’s utility marketplaces outperformed their sales expectations, with the average utility achieving 112% of target. Collectively they sold more than 84,000 smart thermostats, a 22% year-over-year increase, with approximately 45% of those sales coming from the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Promotional sales combined with utility rebates provided at the point of sale significantly reduced the upfront cost to customers, providing low-cost or free thermostats to customers. Smart thermostats provide utility customers up to 15% energy savings each year on cooling, delivering significant energy savings year after year. Additionally, Uplight enrolls 60% of eligible customers into demand response programs creating a more flexible grid.
Uplight creates world-class consumer experiences that result in increased utility customer satisfaction. Uplight’s average Net Promoter Score (NPS) across all of its Marketplaces is 72 (NPS of 65 is considered ‘excellent’ for most retailers), though it rose to 74 during the holiday shopping period. During the busiest time of the year, Uplight maintained its outstanding customer support for utility customers, beating service level agreements such as average speed of answer and time to fulfill by 50%. Uplight’s increased functionality, compared to competitors, drives more value for utility partners, leading to increased enrollment in utility programs such as demand response and managed charging.
“Our Marketplace is a one-stop shop for devices that help customers save energy, take advantage of instant rebates, enroll into relevant programs and connect to the clean grid in a smooth process that we’ve continually fine-tuned to deliver a better customer experience. Even in the year of supply chain disruption, we were able to increase device sales by more than 20%,” said Brad Chen, General Manager of Ecommerce at Uplight. “We’ve spent years focused on optimizing the customer experience, minimizing barriers that are common elsewhere, while also building world-class operations and customer service. We really saw that work pay off this year to deliver results for our utility partners beyond their expectations.”
In addition to these record holiday sales, Uplight Marketplaces quadrupled sales of Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers from 2020 to 2021, as a strong sign of EV adoption. Marketplaces can play a critical role in helping customers switch to EVs, purchase and install Level 2 chargers and help customers enroll into managed charging programs. Uplight found that providing a rebate or enrollment incentive for EV chargers at the point of purchase increased sales by 3.5x compared to non-incentivized chargers.
For more information about Uplight Marketplaces, please visit https://uplight.com/solutions/marketplace/.
About Uplight
Uplight is the technology partner for energy providers and the clean energy ecosystem. Uplight’s software solutions connect energy customers to the decarbonization goals of power providers while helping customers save energy and lower costs, creating a more sustainable future for all. Using the industry’s only comprehensive customer-centric technology suite and critical energy expertise across disciplines, Uplight is streamlining the complex transition to the clean energy ecosystem for more than 80 electric and gas utilities around the world. By empowering energy providers to achieve critical outcomes through data-driven customer experiences, delivering control at the grid edge, creating new revenue streams and optimizing existing load and assets, Uplight shares a mission with its clients to make energy more sustainable for every community. Uplight is a certified B Corporation. To learn more, visit us at www.uplight.com, find us on Twitter @Uplight or on LinkedIn at Linkedin.com/company/uplightenergy.
Contacts
Elaine Reddy
720-252-8105
elaine.reddy@uplight.com
