This summer, a combination of extreme heat and soaring natural gas prices hit electricity customers hard along the gulf coast. And Tara Seavers had a front row seat.

Tara oversees the customer experience at Entergy. And this was one of the highest-stakes customer problems imaginable. Record numbers of people were calling the utility with a dire choice: do they buy groceries or pay their utility bills?

Tara and the Entergy executive team jumped into action, creating a “bold and aggressive” plan to relieve the financial burden on customers. It’s one example of the connection that Tara’s team is forging between the utility and the people it serves. 

“I'm not in the business of just getting a piece of paper or an email to a customer. I want folks to feel confident [in the utility]. That's important to me, and I think it's important to customers,” explains Tara.

This week: the shifting utility-customer experience. Inflation, extreme weather, digitization, distributed energy are all changing expectations around how power companies interact with and serve their customers.

Brad talks with Entergy's Tara Seavers about how this is playing out in the American south.

This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.