In days gone by, utilities didn’t have to worry much about reputation. As long as the lights stayed on, everyone was content. Reliability matters.
When you added in things like money-saving rebate programs and community sponsorships, that was a strong foundation for a good reputation.
Note the key word in the previous sentence: was.
Things have changed in recent years for utilities and other businesses alike, not to mention society as a whole. There's a much more hostile general attitude these days, with fewer people willing to compromise – or even acknowledge that there are other points of view. The winner-takes-all mentality is pervasive and often damaging.
Meantime, utilities have increasingly found themselves the targets of all sorts of complaints and criticisms. Whether it’s utility equipment allegedly causing wildfires to rate increases to concerns about the lack of green energy to security problems, utilities are in the spotlight more than ever. Increasingly wild weather plays a part, too, since outages after big events seem to happen more often.
Throw in a pandemic approaching the two-year mark, which has proven destabilizing in many ways, and problems aren’t going to disappear anytime soon. Getting “back to normal” isn’t likely to happen for a while, if ever.
Therefore, your utility must be more proactive than before in responding to criticism. And, with most things, there are right and wrong ways to accomplish that.
Picking and choosing your battles is of the utmost importance. There’s no way you’re going to make everyone happy, so you’re going to have to settle for some unhappy people.
You shouldn’t worry about the local crank who gets letters published in the local paper, calls up talk radio to complain or posts on their Facebook page about how you’ve disappointed them somehow. Most of these people are harmless and wield zero influence.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t reach out to the person, but do it offline and see if you can even partially satisfy them.
But let’s say an elected official or some sort of local public figure starts complaining about something. It doesn’t matter what they’re complaining about, especially if their arguments are measured, reasonable and backed up with multiple facts. And if their arguments are half-baked, you have all the more reason to respond because they’re likely to attract other cranks.
One thing not to do is ignore the issue and hope it goes away. By doing that, you’re ceding control of the issue to the complainant.
Thus, responding is a must.
When you respond, simply tell your story. Go point-by-point if you can to refute or explain why something happened or is happening. There’s a good chance you have a reasonable explanation for every point made.
And when the complainant makes a point that you simply can’t defend, admitting that there’s a problem is often the right thing to do. Back up your mea culpa in one of a few ways, such as pledging to do better, offering a solution or discussing new measures being considered to prevent it from happening again.
In your responses, it’s paramount to stay cool, calm and collected, not matter how frustrated you get. Always take the high ground.
Name-calling and other forms of denigration and are an obvious no-no; respect the opposing point of view, no matter how outlandish or impractical it might be.
Defending yourself is the name of the game. Present the utility’s viewpoint concisely and understandably while avoiding the use of jargon. Make it clear to all involved that are multiple variables involved in operating a utility, and everything might not be as straightforward as it seems. As you know, it takes a lot in the journey to turn an energy source into electricity that’s available by flicking a switch, but the public takes it for granted. Show them why they shouldn’t.
Remember, you don’t even have to “win” every battle. If you can present a strong enough argument to take the steam out of the criticism at hand, that can get the issue behind you. Most people have short attention spans are move on to the next thing.
When there are extenuating factors, however, such as the involvement of legal action, things change. Your legal team will probably oversee all public statements and comments. At that point, your engagement needs to be limited and deliberate as all verbiage will be put under a microscope. Seemingly innocuous comments can backfire quickly.
Hopefully, however, it never comes to that, since you’ve nipped things in the proverbial bud.