Author: Dan Bates

Earlier this week our Chief Commercial Officer Penelope took part in a webinar hosted by MarketForce, which brought together a series of experts from across the utilities sector to discuss the critical topic of customer experience and how digital transformation can be used to better interact with customers.

Getting this right from the start is something that is taking up a large amount of our time right now.  A typical energy customer will think about their supplier for only around 7 minutes a year (yes, a year!), and usually that’s only because something has gone wrong.  Here at Rebel we want to give our customers a compelling reason to engage with us – whether that be to find out more about our ‘renew’ approach to the environment, or to discover more about our strategy to alleviating fuel poverty.

One of the key themes that came out of the session looked at how customer expectations have changed over recent years, and this has only been accelerated by the upheaval of the last few months.  People are using more energy as they spend time at home, and are keen to understand what they can do to be more efficient and spend less on their bills. But the biggest change we’ve seen is how people are looking to brands to provide positive leadership – both in how ethically they do business, but also in their approach to sustainability.  Customers are also demanding a more personal connection with the business they use and ironically enough, it is technology that will enable better personalisation of the products and services that we offer

Right now, as we design and build our business ready for launch, we are focussing on making sure that we are using AI and cutting edge automated processes to free up our customer services people to be able to have genuine and useful conversations with our customers – using technology to allow people to have better human interactions with their energy supplier.  And because we’re not constrained by legacy technology, like the traditional energy companies, we can build faster and better.  It is that technology, and the data that it manages, that will allow us to help customers get out of fuel poverty, by being able to make more accurate decisions about credit risk and move vulnerable customers onto the cheapest tariffs.  It will also allow us to offer an easy quoting and switching process – giving more accurate prices that mean no nasty bill surprises when you become a customer.  And it will mean that our ‘Rebels’ should have more, positive reasons to talk to us.

The conversation on Monday also discussed how innovation needed to be a key business driver in order to keep up with the pace of change.  Innovation is a key part of our DNA.  Creativity is one of our key values and we will be striving as a business to constantly innovate in the way that we, and the wider industry, does things – driving down costs, and improving the quality of our service.

We are creating a rebellion – big business can be good business.  Join us – be a rebel!

 

 

Yesterday we were really pleased to support our partner Blue Prism, in their announcement about how we were working with them to create a digital workforce.  One of the things I’ve been really clear about from day one is that we need to take a ‘digital first’ approach to building Rebel – automating standard industry processes and creating systems that can handle a lot of the ‘day to day’ repetitive work that comes from running an energy supplier.  This means we can create roles for our people that are more purposeful and engaging, allowing them to build genuine relationships with our customers and focus on problem solving, rather than correcting data or trying to manage data flows.  Our partnership with Blue Prism is a key part of our strategy to build a better business – one that enables our people to build fulfilling careers and helps us to keep costs low for our customers.

And as you may have seen – the media seemed really interested in our story!  We were overwhelmed with the positive response, and we’re really looking forward to continuing to tell the world about Rebel over the next few months as we get ready for launch.

You can read some of the pieces by following the links below, and if you want to find out more about what we’re doing, making sure you sign up to read our newsletter here.

Energy Live News

Current News

Power Technology

Connecting Industry 

Smart Energy International

We were also in Utility Week and Bloomberg, but both of these are behind paywalls, so we haven’t linked them here.

These are the critical early days for Rebel Energy.  We’re building a business that has a strong moral compass, but crucially, also needs to be financially sustainable – because without that, we can’t deliver on the change we want to achieve.

 So for the next month or so we might be a little quiet.  We’re currently going through our latest funding round – looking to partner with investors that share our principles and are excited about what we want to do with Rebel Energy, and understand the full potential of the financial opportunity.  Early conversations are going well, and we hope to be able to make some announcements soon, if you want to hear more about our investment round please drop us a line – at bearebel@rebelenergy.com.

 As we talked about in our last blog, we’re also kicking off our recruitment process – looking for the right people to become Rebels.  And we’re putting in place the technical infrastructure that we need to build a successful energy retailer – all whilst trying to reimagine processes and procedures to make our customers’ lives easier.  It would be very easy to just follow what others had done here, but we’re questioning each of the stages – asking if it has to be that way – and seeking to improve the way that customers might get a quote for their energy and sign up with us.  This for us is almost the most important stage.

 We don’t want to be the same as everyone else – we want to change energy for the better and that means getting things right first time.  We want to do away with processes that cause frustration for customers and eliminate the errors that energy companies are known for. Great customer service and experience will be key to ‘walking the talk’ and delivering on our values.

Interested in finding out more about Rebel?  You can read all our previous blogs here, or sign up to our newsletters and stay up to date with our latest news and announcements.

In my last blog I shared our Rebel values, but I also talked about the importance of ‘walking the talk’ in everything we do.  Many businesses are very good at doing the ‘talking’, but not so good about the ‘walking’ bit – and it’s important to us that we can demonstrate how we live our values in everything we do.  In our latest blog I want to discuss a few of the first steps we’ve taken in ‘walking the talk’ – it’s early days, but as the business develops I’ll share more of the actions we’re taking to be true to those core values.

One of the first things I did as I set up the business was to register as a Pending B-Corporation.  B-Corporation is a movement made up of over 3,200 companies globally who are determined to balance purpose and profit.  By committing to the B-Corporation certification, businesses follow a legal and moral framework that strives to have a positive impact on the planet, their employees and their local communities.  The B-Corporation movement aims to accelerate a global culture shift to redefine what a successful business looks like.  For me, this was a no brainer.  Being a B-Corporation is the perfect definition of what I want to create with Rebel Energy, and we’re excited to be on the 12 month journey to join the nearly 300 UK B-Corporations already registered.  You can find out more about the movement here, and we’ll keep you updated about the journey to full registration as we go.

The next step we’re taking is in the way we recruit our people.  We’re working with Climate 17, a specialist recruiter focused on clean energy and sustainability, who are very much aligned with our passion around preventing and reversing climate change.  We’ve spent a lot of time developing some key descriptions around what we are looking for in our potential colleagues – focusing on creating a diverse workforce, nurturing young talent as well as supporting ‘career wisdom’ and those with lots of experience, building in flexibility to encourage parents and carers, and supporting the vulnerable back into work.  We’re also keen to work with innovators and people with an entrepreneurial mindset – we don’t want people who ‘do it the way it’s always been done’.  We’re kicking off our recruitment efforts this week, so if you are interested in joining the Rebel family, do get in touch with Climate 17 via Rebelenergy@climate17.com.

This is only the start of ‘walking the talk’ – we’ll be putting in place more actions over the coming weeks and months. And as with everything, we want to make sure that you see us living our values – if you see us do anything that doesn’t align with what we say, please do drop me a line at BeaRebel@rebelenergy.com.

Rebel Energy was born of frustration – I saw that big businesses were moving in the right direction – but they weren’t going far or fast enough.  There were lots of empty words from corporations, but meaningful and effective change seemed a long way away.

It’s really important to me that Rebel Energy is reinventing what it means to be an energy supplier by building a new kind of business from the ground up – with strong moral foundations and a genuine will to help people get out of fuel poverty and to heal our world.  We want to challenge the concept of the ‘poverty premium’ and support our local communities.  Part of that is also about offering fair employment and empowering our people to make the right decisions for our customers and rewarding them fairly – we offer a profit share and aim to have a diverse team, including providing opportunities for the long term unemployed and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.  

It is important that we are clear what we stand for and what people can expect from us, so we’ve spent a long time thinking and developing our values – they really matter to us as these are what we want to be known for:

Compassion:  

• We care.  For our customers and for our colleagues – we understand the challenges each faces and put ourselves in their shoes.  

• This means accepting people for their differences and giving them the freedom to make decisions and choices.

Connected:  

• We are connected to the communities we work with and in. 

• By working locally, we can harness the potential of all to make a difference to wider society. 

Curious:  

• We are constantly curious –  questioning why things are the way they are and looking for better ways to do things.  We don’t accept that things have to be this way and are striving to improve society and the world around us, by building a business for good.

Creative:  

• We approach everything with an open mind

• This means seeking different solutions to challenges, and not accepting ‘that it’s always been done like this’.  We want to create big solutions to transform society by reimagining the ways in which people consume, purchase and interact with energy.

Courageous:  

• We’re always looking to do the right thing, to take brave decisions and to challenge things we think are wrong – we take the lead where others do not. 

• We’re willing to listen to all perspectives, and own our mistakes.  We’re open and honest.

These values are still evolving as we build Rebel Energy and we have an internal saying that matters – ‘we need to walk the talk’.  There is no point in having values if you are not living or breathing them.

As we start to bring colleagues on board to support our customers and build our business, these values will really come to life – in the way we do business, treat our customers and support the communities around us.  

We want to be held to account – and if you ever see anything that we do that goes against those values, it’s important that I and the rest of the team know – you can contact me at bearebel@rebelenergy.com.

We’re living in unprecedented times, there’s no doubt about that.  The threat of climate change, recognised as a real risk, has been surpassed by the very real presence of Covid-19.  But with all this uncertainty, it also feels like we’re at a crossroads, and that the concept of the ‘new normal’ presents us with a fantastic opportunity.  The Ancient Greek’s had two different words for time – Chronos which means chronological or sequential time – and Kairos, meaning the right or opportune time for action.

For us here at Rebel, this feels like a Kairos moment.  A moment when we all stop, look at where we are, and what has come before, and seize the opportunity to make a difference.  We see the light at the end of the tunnel and the promise of change.  We all have a choice to make – do we look to the future with positivity, with the promise of transformation, or do we look back at the past?

For us, it’s a no brainer.  We want to shift the dial – to tackle the climate crisis head on, to build resilient communities, and to create a business that demonstrates to all that we can be a positive force for change.  The last few months have shown us that community is more important than ever – we’ve been supported and sheltered by our neighbours and society around us.  So how do we turn that into a permanent force for good?

We are creating a company which supports people out of fuel poverty and that helps the long-term unemployed back into work.  We don’t believe in big bonuses or fat cat salaries, but profits that are built on doing the right thing, that can help to fight the climate crisis and that supports our local communities.

This is our Kairos moment – a once in a generation time to rebel against the way things are currently being done, to do things differently, and to change the way we do business forever.

We’re a Rebel with a cause, creating Energy that makes a difference.  Come and join our Rebellion.

CEO and Founder of Rebel Energy

We’re Rebel Energy – an energy company with a difference.  With plans to launch to our customers at the end of this year, we’re starting the conversation now, telling people about our ambitions and aspirations.

We believe that the way energy is supplied is broken and needs to change.  And whilst many are trying, we’ve been frustrated that the pace of change is just not quick enough.  It shouldn’t be that hard to provide low cost, clean energy with great customer service, in a socially responsible way.

So we’re going to change that.  We’re a rebel with a cause – we believe that it is possible for a company to have a positive social impact and be profitable – that helps customers to get out of fuel poverty, that supplies low carbon energy, and that doesn’t make profits for the fat cats. 

Over the coming weeks we want to open up the conversation – what does being a Rebel mean to you?  And we’ll be sharing our plans for a business that is going to make a difference and introducing you to the team here at Rebel. 

If you want to be the first to hear about the latest news from Rebel and join our rebellion, then sign up for our newsletter here.  We promise we won’t spam you, and won’t share your data with anyone else.  

Watch this space…….