ST LOUIS, Mo. – October 25, 2011 – Aclara, a leader in consumer-engagement solutions for utilities and a platinum sponsor Chartwell Inc.'s upcoming EMACS Customer Experience conference, being held October 26-28 in Orlando, will open and close the event with sessions that bring together industry leaders and consumer-engagement experts. Aclara is a member of the Utility Solutions Group of ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ESE)
In the opening general session, Aclara will present “How Human Behavior Influences Change that Improves the Utility Website User Experience.” Meena Kothandaraman, adjunct professor at Bentley University, will deliver the results of the extensive research on improving how people use utility web sites that Aclara recently conducted with graduate students at Bentley. Aclara's vice president of product management, Andy Zetlan, will join Kothandaraman in discussing how utilities can combine technology, product design, and an understanding of human behavior to improve the user experience on web sites.
In the closing session, Aclara will lead a blue-ribbon, smart-grid industry panel involving Kothandaraman and three additional industry experts: Alan Destribats, vice president and advisor to the Energy and Smart Grid Practice, Services and Emerging Industries Division of J.D. Power and Associates, Robert M Geneczko, vice president of customer services at PPL Electric Utilities, and Mark Johnson, co-founder and vice president of the Intelligent Utility Division of Energy Central. Zetlan will moderate. The panelists will define the roadmap for advanced consumer engagement, will discuss how utilities are improving in this area, and will provide a vision of what the future might look like from each panelist's perspective.
“We are actively moving further from an engineering-centric way of doing business to an experience-centric way of doing business,” explains Kothandaraman. “Engaging our customers allows us to design more meaningfully for the individual, such that product design correlates ROI to customers' behaviors, motivations and needs.”
Aclara consumer-engagement solutions power 15 of the top 25 utility web sites benchmarked in the recently completed “E Source Review of North American Electric and Gas Company Websites: 2011.” Additionally, Aclara solutions are used by 45 of the 100 utilities that were analyzed.
For media inquiries:
Nancy E. Talley
Marketing Communications Manager
440-528-7287
About Aclara
Aclara represents the industry's leading Intelligent Infrastructure technologies for providing device networking, data-value management, and customer communications to water, gas, and electric utilities globally. Over 500 utilities in nine countries rely on proven Aclara solutions to connect with their customers. Aclara is part of the Utility Solutions Group of ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE), St. Louis. Create Your Intelligent Infrastructureâ„¢ www.Aclara.com.
