Rate Education Reports - Email

Email Rate Education Reports are digital communications that inform customers of rate changes, encourage customers to opt in to a new rate, or provide other information specific to rates.

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Customer Experience

Email Rate Education Reports consist of modules containing actionable information about customers' energy rates. Content is delivered directly in the email message with no attachments. This makes it more convenient for customers to quickly view the information, and it makes the emails less likely to be blocked by spam filters.

Subject Line

The subject line is used to engage the customer and brand the communication. The subject line varies based on the content of the Rate Education Report and is determined by Oracle Utilities and the utility.

Email Header

The email header contains a logo provided by the utility and the customer's utility account number. Part of the account number is obscured for security purposes.

Email Modules

Rate Education Reports contain modules that provide the following types of information:

  • Rate Analysis Information: A customer-specific analysis of projected savings by opting in to a new rate plan. For example, the projected annual or monthly cost for the current rate as compared to the projected annual or monthly cost for the new rate.
  • Rate Plan Details: Information about the new rate plan such as the season start and end dates, peak hours, and the number of days during the season affected by the rate plan.
  • Custom Tips: Custom tips can be added to provide information about how customers can save energy on a new rate plan. For example, customers may be able to reduce their energy use during peak hours to receive lower cost energy bills under a new rate plan.

Additional custom modules may be available. Contact your Delivery Team to discuss your options.

Email Footer

The email footer contains the following content:

Unsubscribe: A link to a page where customers can unsubscribe from email Rate Education Reports. An unsubscribe link must appear due to CAN-SPAM regulations in the US and similar regulations abroad. The URL the unsubscribe link points to cannot be customized.

Warning: Unsubscribing from Rate Education Reports in this manner unsubscribes the customer from all Oracle Utilities Opower email communications. This action is permanent. A customer cannot opt in again after opting out.

Address: The utility's mailing address. The mailing address must appear due to CAN-SPAM regulations in the US and similar regulations abroad.

Disclaimer: An optional disclaimer that can be added at the request of the utility.

Legal text: The copyright and any other legal text required by the utility or Oracle Utilities.

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Data Requirements and Limitations

Utility Requirements

  • Languages: Not all languages and locales are supported at this time. Contact your Oracle Utilities Sales Representative to confirm that Rate Education Reports are available in your market.
  • Report Limit: Up to two Rate Education Reports are included in the 12 month contract period in the Rates Engagement cloud service.
  • Supported Email Clients: Oracle Utilities supports email clients that may be native to a specific device, such as the installed email client on the iPhone, as well as email client applications that may be accessed from any device or computer, such as Gmail.com. Oracle Utilities supports the following email clients to view email Rate Education Reports:
    • iPhone internal email client
    • iPad internal email client
    • Apple Mail
    • Android internal email client
    • Microsoft Outlook
    • Outlook.com
    • Yahoo! Mail
    • Gmail.com

    For email clients that support multiple versions operating at the same time (for example, Apple iOS6 on iPhone or Microsoft Outlook 2010, 2012, and 2013), Oracle Utilities generally supports the most current major release as well as a number of previous major releases. For email clients that only provide a single version (for example, Gmail.com), Oracle Utilities supports the currently available version. Other email clients are not officially supported or tested by Oracle Utilities. Customers viewing email Rate Education Reports on unsupported devices or applications may see user experience variations in their reports.

  • Customer Service Limitation: Rate Education Reports are not currently available for Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) to view in the Customer Service Interface (CSI).

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Customer Requirements

  • Historical Billing Data: The customer must have 12 months of historical billing data.
  • Billing Data: Customer billing data must date back to the beginning of the current billing cycle.
  • Customer Email Address: The customer must have a current email address.

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