Demand Flexibility & Customer Engagement: How to Streamline Your Back-of-Office Functionality

If you’re reading this, you likely understand that the electric utility industry is at an inflection point brought on by rapidly growing energy needs driven by AI and data center developments and the increased occurrence of volatile and extreme weather patterns. You likely understand that U.S. electric infrastructure is old, increasingly inefficient, and incredibly expensive to upgrade, and that issues involving the supply chain or tariffs are compounding these challenges, driven by an erratic approach to energy policies that stigmatize demand flexibility and renewable energy initiatives.

Did you know that demand flexibility programs like virtual power plants, demand response, and EV charging can help mitigate these issues at a fraction of the cost of building a new power plant? These demand flexibility programs are powered by your most important asset: customers. Fortunately, customer engagement software to encourage enrollment, education, and participation is available to simplify back-of-office functionality, while increasing your demand flexibility potential.

Why Demand Flexibility is Critical During the Energy Transition

Demand flexibility programs are enabled by leveraging distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar, battery energy storage systems, electric vehicles (EVs) and EVSE charging accoutrement, and smart home devices like thermostats and water heaters. These devices are controlled by a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS), which aggregates otherwise disparate DER assets. DERMS technologies come in two forms: Grid DERMS and Grid-Edge DERMS. Grid DERMS manage utility-held DER assets like solar or battery installations, whereas Grid-Edge DERMS aggregate the growing number of behind-the-meter DER assets found in places like residential, commercial, or industrial properties, to name a few.

Utility Dive recently reported that renewable energy assets made up 91% of energy generation added in the first 5 months of 2025. Likewise, analysts have found that U.S. utility-scale battery storage continues to gain in the market as well, indicating again the widespread interest in renewable energy programs like demand flexibility programs to meet growing demand. In 2020 alone, more than 11.6 million electric utility customers provided around 29.5 GW of demand flexibility capacity through demand response programs alone.

As a conservation program, demand response shifts load to off-peak hours of usage by strategically changing temperature set points on thermostats or water heaters, or shifting charging times to off-peak hours of demand. As such, savings from demand flexibility programs represent energy that the utility didn’t need to materially account for, decreasing expenditures while increasing grid resiliency. And these results reflect only a subset of available data, all of which supports the cost-saving potential of demand flexibility programs.

Back-of-Office Costs

Back-of-office refers to the portion of staffing that handles enrollment, measures participation to determine incentives, processes incentives, and manages outbound processes like marketing communications. Research indicates that these inefficiencies can cost companies up to 20-30% of their revenue per year. This may be different depending on the type and scale of the operation, and identifying specific costs for electric utilities is difficult due to a lack of national reporting details as it relates to these costs. Still, as the majority of U.S. electric utilities are regulated, minimizing any operational inefficiencies can go a long way to save on growing back-of-office overhead by leveraging smart technologies to help.

Forms Made Simple

Rather than relying on manual eligibility verifications and enrollment or un-enrollment processes, a quick actions modal can save time and energy on back-of-office functionalities. A quick actions modal cuts down on time, saving program managers an estimated 4 hours per week. Quick actions modals significantly reduce times to verify customer eligibility and enrollment/un-enrollment, and as such, help utility operations save money on their customer engagement tactics.

Direct Messaging

Reaching out to customers directly has proven effective in convincing them to enroll and participate in grid-scale demand flexibility events. Direct messaging functionality allows utility program managers to individually message customers within their portal, rather than having to use an external system.

Message Triggers

Message triggers are useful in providing quick, templated messages that are set based on utility-determined triggers, which then automatically prompt customer response. An example of messaging triggers may include confirmation of enrollment or un-enrollment, or to report on event opt-ins/outs, event participation, and more. This functionality helps keep end-users in line with program rules, while reducing overall admin time for utilities, saving money, without shortchanging customers on the information that they crave.

How to Streamline Your Back-of-Office Functionality: Conclusion

The Energy Consumer Survey 2022 found that 80% of consumers want their electric utility provider to play a role in new energy products and their service experience. Simultaneously, the Department of Energy (DOE) called for an increase in virtual power plant capacity from the 30-60 GW available primarily through demand response programs as of 2023 to 80-160 GW by 2030 to support rapidly increasing demand, and it becomes clear that customer outreach for demand flexibility programs is both what customers want and what utility operators need to meet rapidly growing demand. Fortunately, increased back-of-office customer engagement functionality is available AND affordable, and designed to help utilities connect with their most precious resource: their customers.

About The Author

With almost two decades of leadership, growth marketing, and communication experience, Amber Mullaney drives the strategy behind Virtual Peaker's marketing initiatives. A proud Texan native, she graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Public Relations and Interpersonal Communication. She is passionate and experienced in managing brands, product lines, marketing programs, and driving cross-functional teams.

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