Your customers still have questions after they buy from you. They want to understand what they’re paying for, make good decisions, and figure out how to get more value from the relationship.
A quiz can help you answer those questions in a way that involves the customer. They get to participate, share something about their situation, and learn something useful along the way.
Direct Energy is a good example of this. When I spoke with Vilasini, who runs their quiz program, she explained how they used quizzes to educate and engage their energy customers in Alberta.
Their approach started with understanding those customers. Vilasini said their brand research found that people felt disengaged, confused, and stuck when it came to energy providers. They wanted transparency and simplicity. They wanted to save time and money.
That gave the team a clear direction for their quizzes: help people understand energy topics that affect their everyday lives.
They also used quizzes for lead generation, but something Vilasini shared stood out to me. Their existing customers were the key participants. They were finding the quizzes through customer newsletters and emails and choosing to engage with them.
That opens up a whole different way to think about where a quiz fits into your business. You can use it to keep helping the people who already buy from you.
One of Direct Energy’s quizzes helped customers understand what was on their energy bill. The questions covered different sections of the bill, and when someone got an answer wrong, the quiz explained the correct answer right away.
That’s a very practical use of a quiz. The customer gets to learn as they go. The next time they look at their bill, they have more context for understanding the charges.
Think about the equivalent in your own business. What do customers regularly ask you to explain? What part of your product or service becomes easier to use once someone understands it?
Those questions can be useful starting points for a quiz because the value is already clear. You’re helping someone understand something that matters to them as a customer.
Direct Energy also used a quiz to help people think through which energy rate option would fit their preferences. Vilasini described questions about their current plan, their comfort with risk, and additional features they cared about, such as renewable energy.
The recommendation came from what the person shared.
That’s useful because being an existing customer doesn’t mean someone’s needs stay the same. They may have different priorities now than when they first signed up. A quiz gives them a way to tell you what matters to them today, and it gives you a way to offer relevant guidance.
Another example was an assessment about whether someone’s home might be suitable for solar. Vilasini brought her experience in the solar industry into questions about the home, the roof’s age, and its orientation.
The quiz helped people consider details that would affect their next steps. It also helped the team understand what customers needed to learn before moving forward.
Vilasini said roof age emerged as a significant issue among participants. That finding gave the team something specific to address in their education about solar: the preparations and considerations that could come before installation.
This is where your expertise becomes especially valuable. You know the things a customer needs to think about, including details they might not know to ask about yet. A quiz can help you guide them through those considerations.
And the learning goes both ways.
Vilasini explained that the answers to their quizzes helped identify gaps in customers’ understanding. With the energy-bill quiz, the responses confirmed some of the areas the team already suspected were confusing.
They used those insights to create videos, blog posts, and social content that addressed the questions customers were struggling with.
So the quiz became part of an ongoing process. Help customers understand something, pay attention to their responses, and use what you learn to make the next piece of content more useful.
You can apply that same approach by looking beyond which result was most common. Look at individual questions. Where are people unsure? Which answers suggest that you need to explain something more clearly? What could you create that would help those customers?
The distribution can be straightforward, too. Direct Energy included quizzes in newsletters and customer emails. You can introduce a relevant quiz through the communications you already send, at a point when the topic is useful to the person receiving it.
Explain what they’ll get from taking it. Understanding their bill, exploring an option, or figuring out a next step gives them a reason to participate.
Vilasini also said the team observed lower churn among customers who took quizzes through their newsletters and emails. She described an association in their customer data; the interview did not establish how much of that difference was caused by the quizzes.
What I liked about the broader approach was how clearly it connected the company’s expertise to something customers wanted help with.
When we talked, I described it as becoming an assistant to your customers. You’re able to help them get what they want, and that creates a mutually beneficial relationship.
To start using quizzes with existing customers, pick one question they have after buying from you. Use your expertise to help them work through it, give them a useful answer, and pay attention to what their responses teach you about how to help them next.