Celebrating Innovation
Efficiency Program: Big Wins for Small Businesses
Many of our customers would love to improve energy efficiency, but oftentimes other priorities come first. Or sometimes the prospect of upgrading a home’s insulation or efficiencies on a manufacturing line may feel overwhelming. Our Efficiency team continuously strives to find new ways to add value and provide expertise by helping customers identify opportunities and incentivizing them to complete these projects. This year we focused on program improvement for business customers.
Expanding the Team & Tools
In October 2024, the Efficiency team hired an additional Efficiency Programs Specialist to focus on small business energy efficiency and water conservation. This expanded capacity allowed the team to evaluate and improve old processes. It also added time for more relational touchpoints with customers.
With the new team in place, we made large improvements to the application process for energy efficiency rebates. One of those improvements was a new project management and relationship database to support application processing and customer communication. This allowed us to reorganize our internal workflows. With these improvements, the portion of our team focused on commercial and industrial customers can better stay on top of applications, monitor existing applications for project delays and send timely communications. Applications and customer information are easier to find, and projects move seamlessly through the pipeline.
With a new database in place, we were able to improve communication and efficiency. This included:
- Creating standardized messages to communicate application progress with customers and trade allies.
- Adding project summary reports that included information on the rebate paid, estimated annual energy savings, and estimated impact on the planet.
These improvements have received warm feedback from our trade allies and customers. Customers especially appreciate the project summary and often report sharing it with their colleagues.
The Walkthrough Process
Our Efficiency team has always offered free energy walkthroughs for commercial and industrial customers. However, with the expanded team and improved tools, we have conducted more walkthroughs for smaller customers and improved our report template with each site visit. Our customer base encompasses a diverse range of industries, and we look forward to learning and improving our tailored process for each customer.
Spreading the News
With these many improvements, it was also a top priority to communicate the rebates and opportunities to our customers. After well-received improvements to our residential rebate pages in early 2025, we updated our commercial and industrial content in the same way. Customers can now navigate to hollandbpw.com/rebates and find updated information about our programs and rebates.
This year’s efforts improved our team’s efficiency, customer communications, and the overall experience for our customers and trade allies. The Efficiency team is committed to continual improvement. Our explicit goal is to make the rebate programs more accessible and beneficial to customers of all sizes.