Nearly 50% of consumers would take telecoms or television services from their energy supplier.
It’s still a wires and cable business. While you sip at a cup of tea in front of the TV, your home is continually supplied. Electricity comes down one line, gas through another. So do cable TV and telephone calls. And soon all of these services could be offered by a single company and paid with one bill, if energy providers respond to their customers.
A Datamonitor survey shows that 45% of consumers would seriously consider taking television services from their energy supplier whilst 42% would consider taking telecoms. Home appliances were also strongly considered, with 39% of respondents citing this option.
Most energy suppliers are already pursuing additional services to offer customers. Interestingly many have looked at financial services, especially credit cards (e.g. Centrica’s Goldfish card). But the majority of respondents in the survey would not consider financial products from energy suppliers, with 80% not considering banking and over 90% not considering credit cards. Presumably customers do not believe energy companies have the necessary expertise to handle their money responsibly.
The future profits lie in the adoption of an online home appliance service. It is a lucrative market, but a completely different business model. Energy is a perfect product to deliver online, as it has no physical presence, in terms of delivery, and it can be easily be administered via the web. The provision of telecoms would also suit this online delivery model.
Although a quarter of all consumers surveyed seem resistant to cross selling from energy companies, this still leaves a massive market for suppliers to tap. And the level of resistance will undoubtedly reduce in the future. Although 25% appears a sizeable proportion, this would have undoubtedly substantially higher five years ago, before energy supply competition started.
