Market Research for Energy & Utilities Brands
Why do some customers stay loyal to their energy provider while others switch with a single click? We answer with applied market research for energy and utilities: brand tracking, concept testing, and customer experience studies. Recent work includes MOL România. See the full portfolio below.
Industry portfolios at MKOR:
Retail & FMCG | Tech & eCommerce | Finance, Banking & Insurance | Health, Pharma & Beauty | Fashion & Lifestyle | Real Estate & Construction | B2B Services & Logistics | Social & Education | Auto & Mobility | HoReCa & Tourism
Concept Testing Research for a Fuels Market Brand – MOL Romania
In the context of conducting an European study to test a new concept for Premium fuels in countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic, MOL Romania initiated the collaboration with MKOR Consulting.
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How we help energy and utility teams decide with confidence
The market has liberalized, tariffs keep moving, and customers now read their bills line by line. Meanwhile, you have to decide where the next euro goes: into communication, into new services, or into digital infrastructure. Market research with MKOR tells you what your customers actually understand about your offer, what pushes them toward a competitor, and how ready they are for the green solutions you plan to roll out.
We work with energy suppliers, utility operators, and payments players, turning customer reactions into operational decisions. Not reports that collect dust on a shared drive.
Successful launches
A new supply offer or a new product at the pump does not sell on merit alone. It sells when the message is clear and the proposition meets a real need. We validate the idea before go-to-market through brand concept testing, check the real experience through product testing, and size the segment with a market opportunity analysis. Example: the brand concept testing on the fuels market for MOL România.
Brand performance
In a market where customers switch suppliers with a single click, awareness is no longer a bonus, it is a condition for survival. We measure mental availability, brand associations, and churn drivers through continuous brand tracking, brand awareness research, and competitive analysis. Data is comparable across waves, so you can tell whether your communication budget is moving indicators or just spending.
Understanding the customer
Customers rarely tell you straight why they switched provider or why last month’s bill went unpaid until the third reminder. We combine usage and attitudes research with consumer profiling to identify what actually triggers consumption, payment, and switching decisions. Depth interviews and behavioral scenarios surface the reasons customers will not volunteer in a 30-second phone survey.
Digital efficiency
The supplier app is the first monthly touchpoint for most customers. If submitting a meter reading takes five minutes, the whole digital transformation story falls apart right there. We measure friction through consumer experience research, from onboarding to support, and when a decision has to be made fast we run agile research with results in days, not months.
The energy transition
Solar panels, heat pumps, and green energy contracts are topics customers hear everywhere and understand only partially. We evaluate real willingness to pay more for clean energy, the information barriers that block adoption, and the segments with the highest potential through innovation and forecasting, and before entering a new category we run a market opportunity analysis. The gap between stated intent and real behavior only shows up when you ask the right question.
Common questions about energy & utilities research
How much does a market research study cost for an energy provider?
Budget depends on methodology, sample size, and turnaround speed. As a rough guide, a national brand tracking wave starts from a few thousand euros, and a qualitative focus group on a specific customer segment costs proportionally less. For an accurate estimate we need a concrete brief, so send us the project details and we will come back with numbers.
How do you measure how well customers understand their utility bills?
We combine cognitive testing of the document with in-depth interviews: we show the actual bill to the customer, ask them to walk us through each line, and note where they get stuck. We add usage and attitudes research for context, and at scale we validate through a quantitative survey. The result is a clear map of the points of confusion and the wording that can be rewritten.
What methods do you use to evaluate consumer openness to green energy?
Statements like “yes, I would pay more for green energy” overstate real behavior. We use trade-off techniques and concrete price scenarios, integrated into innovation and forecasting, to separate stated intent from real willingness to pay. We then segment the audience through consumer profiling, so you know which message to send to each group.
How do you validate a new utility service before launch?
In two stages: first the concept, then the experience. We run brand concept testing to check whether the proposition is clear and attractive for the target segment, then consumer experience research across the end-to-end flow, from sign-up to first bill. That way you catch communication and process issues before the market does.
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