Step 1: Customer reads report: “You used 72 percent more than your efficient neighbors.”
Step 2: Customer reads targeted tip: “Most people in your area keep their AC at 78 degrees”
Step 3: Customer turns down thermostat and takes other energy-saving actions.
It’s no secret that the key to large-scale energy efficiency is large-scale customer action. The math is compelling: motivate one million households to make a simple adjustment in their daily energy consumption, and you will save enough energy to power 25,000 homes!
But how do we compel millions of individuals, each living in potentially very different circumstances, to take meaningful, energy-saving action?
We start by getting their attention...
OPOWER's Chief Scientist, Dr. Robert Cialdini, has developed a breakthrough approach that uses the power of normative messaging to succesfully engage and motivate action across a very high percentage of targeted individuals. The "magnetism of the middle" as he calls it, has proven to be one of the most effective ways to get people to pay attention to your message, and respond in a favorable fashion.
...and making it easy to act.
Once we have their attention, it is important to take full advantage. Instead of presenting customers with a “kitchen sink” of ideas on how to save energy, we present customers with only the most relevant and immediately actionable suggestions on how to save. We will never suggest to a renter to insulate a home they do not own, or recommend a costly, Energy Star refrigerator to a low-income household.
Household-level customization of all our customer-facing products is the key to successfully engaging a broad population. OPOWER's ability to develop and send out millions of individualized messages is what differentiates our products, and is the key to large-scale energy savings that we deliver.