FSB slams smart meter engagement strategy for microbusinesses

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has slammed the lack of funding for a microbusinesses engagement strategy in the smart meter rollout as “a recipe for failure.”

In its submission to a Smart Energy GB consultation on engagement, the FSB outlined its concerns at proposals to extend messages aimed at domestic consumers out to microbusinesses, rather than for a specific non-domestic campaign.

The FSB said this approach would fail due to the “different and diverse nature of small businesses.”

It stated a targeted campaign will be essential to combating “a high degree of mistrust” amongst small businesses around the relative costs of their energy and the value for money they get.

The submission said: “Without guarantees about the real benefits smart meters will bring, small businesses are unlikely to give them the benefit of the doubt given their previous and ongoing experience in the wider energy market.”

The FSB also stated a “much deeper understanding of the diversity of microbusinesses will be required to inform a dedicated communications strategy for that audience,” something that could be achieved by having additional funding in place for a specific non-domestic customer campaign.

“The importance, significance and centrality of energy costs varies considerably amongst microbusinesses and the engagement strategy will need to reflect this diversity if it is to be successful,” the FSB said.

While energy suppliers do not sub-divide the smaller end of the business market into anything under 250 employees, the FSB warned the approach – set out in Smart Energy GB’s licence conditions – is at risk of seeing small businesses as more similar than they are to domestic customers.

The FSB said: “Recognising their lack of data and lack of resource, Smart Energy GB are in danger of going too far the other way and assuming all small businesses operate the same as household customers. Some of them do, some of them don’t.”

Responding to the comments Smart Energy GB director of policy and communications Claire Maugham told Utility Week: “It is set out in the law that established Smart Energy GB as an organisation that our consumer campaign should be extended to include microbusinesses, where it is cost effective to do so.

“This approach is not a choice on our part but a requirement of the law which has established us as an organisation.”

She added the consultation “was launched to gather valuable insight from industry experts to make sure we deliver on this objective as effectively as possible so that as many microbusinesses as possible can benefit from the smart meter rollout and the vital transformation it will bring to the way we buy gas and electricity.”