About OnPoint Energy

Deregulated energy is still the exception, not the rule, in the USA. 19 states have deregulated in whole or in part, and Texas is one that has embraced deregulation accounting for the largest US deregulated market. 

OnPoint Energy is a Houston-based Retail Electricity Provider (REP) that offers consumers different electricity packages from different suppliers and also different sources, such as renewable, blended, solar and so on.

OnPoint seeks to stand out as a trustworthy, reliable, cost effective and helpful provider in a market that is often characterized as complex and is occupied by less than ethical players. The brand and approach to the market is centered around providing energy products that are easy to understand, competitively priced and backed by exemplary customer service.  While the business only launched a little over a year ago, the brand places emphasis of the 186 years combined experience of its core personnel.

Focusing on growth

Keith Dezern, Vice President of Digital Strategy at OnPoint Energy, explained that the initial focus throughout the first year of using Optimizely has been on growing the company’s B2C channel by a combination of acquisitions through digital marketing, affiliates, and organic growth.  

He explained they are simultaneously building out the tools and capacity to grow their B2B business, and this will take center stage in the company’s roadmap for 2024.

Using Optimizely to bring order to chaos

The REP market has only existed since 1996, and history shows it has not always been easy for customers to use it to their advantage. Prices change at a moment’s notice and customers find themselves on an energy rate that is genuinely the best available one day and wholly uncompetitive the next. This sort of volatility can breed mistrust, and that mistrust is sometime well-earned, especially among newly launched REPs, in which fraud is commonplace.

This comes across as a risk, but it can also present an opportunity for a provider to stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of trust and transparency. To do that with real meaning, OnPoint needed a platform that would allow deep insight into the enrolment and customer journey, but also and the flexibility and extensibility to allow for the integrations and workflows that are unique to the company’s vertical.  

Optimizely provides the means to deliver a modern, transparent and efficient consumer buying experience for OnPoint’s customers. Keith confirmed that selecting Optimizely allowed OnPoint to enter the market without delay and ready to face the peak of market demand in Texas’s uncompromising summer months. 2022 saw the fourth hottest summer on record in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and power usage for home cooling was correspondingly high. 

Installing the platform provided order management capability that incorporated fraud prevention, customer support, easier customer journey development and extensibility through API integrations. These included multiple integrations with internal and partner platforms including vendor platforms for utility data management and customer service. The platform also integrates with OnPoint’s centralized repository of customer data that serves as our system of record for reporting, marketing and sales. 

Immediate measurable results – fraud prevention and customer acquisition

Over the first week that OnPoint’s website was live on Optimizely Customized Commerce platform, the company saw an incredible 90% fraudulent enrolment rate. This flood was stopped at the point of entry, so none of the fraudulent applications reached the point of actual enrolment as customers.  

OnPoint was able to use this information to create a fraud prevention process that brought fraudulent accounts close to near zero in 90 days. This is an achievement that was unprecedented within the REP industry. It typically takes REP companies 12 months at a minimum to achieve meaningful fraud prevention.

Optimizely has also enabled OnPoint to reduce customer acquisition cost to less than half the expected cost to date. Optimizely’s Customized Commerce has lived up to its name, allowing OnPoint to work faster and smarter through third party affiliates, developing APIs that integrate with these third-party digital enrolment journeys.

Implementing Optimizely Data Platform (ODP)

OnPoint has implemented the first phase of the Optimizely Data Platform (ODP).  This phase set about integrating the customer data OnPoint held in Content Cloud and Customized Commerce, allowing them start using ODP for segmentation.

This served to drive marketing automation and analysis of OnPoint’s customer book. The resulting insights from ODP have provided vital information to OnPoint’s customer support team, helping them to better understand what happens in the enrolment path from the customer’s perspective. OnPoint is confident that improved brand engagement will play a critical role in reducing churn.

Cooperation with BlueBolt

OnPoint set itself some stern challenges in getting to market against a tight timeline in a market that has complex integrations and strict regulations. The company worked alongside BlueBolt as a development partner for implementation of Customized Commerce and Content Cloud.  

Keith credits BlueBolt’s development skill set with the Optimizely platform and in-depth ecommerce experience as a crucial component of their success in getting to market as quickly and efficiently as they did. He added that BlueBolt will continue to be a valued part of the team as OnPoint builds out and executes its roadmap.     

An easy implementation with multiple benefits

As a start-up, OnPoint was fortunate in that it was unencumbered by the legacy business processes, systems and technical debt that so many companies have to overcome.  Selecting Optimizely allowed them to leverage speedy market access at the peak time in a difficult year. The platform provided everything the business needed and more in terms of order management capability. This in turn enabled the fraud prevention measures, customer support, and customer journey development capabilities we have already mentioned.

Keith stressed that the team has found Optimizely easy to implement and customize and very price competitive relative to other platforms in the market.  He added that the capabilities across the Optimizely product suite give digital Business Development  and marketing teams the tools they need to build a clear digital roadmap that will empower growth.

Looking ahead

OnPoint is a company that is forever looking ahead in a fast-moving market. Keith commented that the business has successfully moved through what he calls the “crawl/walk phase” of its year one digital roadmap, and that now it is ready to start running. 

The next phase of ODP development is already planned and will focus heavily on growing the company’s B2B business. Phase Two will also include integrating complex utility data along with billing details and marketing interactions with Google and Meta. This step will have a significant impact on the business’s ability to provide a truly personalized experience for customers, both in terms of initial enrolment and customer support. 

This can only make sense for customers. Since deregulation, the world of power supply has exhibited characteristics of the wild west on both the supply and demand side of the coin. OnPoint is leading the way in cleaner and more transparent processes that serve to benefit all parties. Optimizely is proud to have the opportunity to be a part of this revolution.