Campground Commander, the leading campground management software integrates with Wild Energy (this is part 2). Mary Moeller, Campground Commander’s CEO was interviewed by Woodall’s Campground Magazine for their Supplier Showcase. Mary was joined by Mike Sorensen, president and CEO of Wild Energy.
This is part 2 of the interview. If you haven’t read part 1 of this interview yet – go back and read that first!
In this part of the interview, Mary, Mike, and Ben are discussing electricity metering and how the industry is adapting to this new reality. We’ve included the highlights of the interview below, but you can also view the full interview on Woodall’s Campground Magazine YouTube channel.
Mary: “I would like to address that with family-owned campgrounds too, because a lot of times family-owned campgrounds are now bringing in and allowing seasonal sites to be rented. And one of the concerns they have is, well, we have these people that have been coming year after year after year. They’re going to be really unhappy about this. But, Mike, you address this very well. You know, if these same campers are at home, they’re going to have to pay for their electricity. If they have a phone, they’re going to have to pay for their phone, you know. So, it’s an educational process.
I think like you said, Mike, to the campground owners and those owners, just like you and I are helping smaller family-owned campgrounds understand how important this is for them to be able to succeed and stay in business. Even campers that have been at a campground for a longer period of time understand this concept. It’s just a matter that up to this point, they basically got it for free and they know it.”
Ben: “Yeah, I think that’s some of the issues, you know, when we read the Facebook forums and stuff, you know, the industry for a long time did just kind of hand it out. And, you know, there is going to be an adjustment phase, but I think people kind of understand that thoughts are going up. And I mean, on the electrical side, it’s going up quite a bit.
So what does this partnership Campground Commander and Wild Energy have together? What does this mean for park owners? What kind of capabilities are they going to be able to have if they use Campground Commander when it comes to metering sites?”
Mike: “Our metering is real-time, so that is one of the advantages, is that we know at 11:37 what that meter said, and so that data is available to Campground Commander. Their system just asks us, ‘hey, at this time, what do the meters say?’ And that just passes seamlessly right through to Campground Commander.
The bigger lift is what Simon’s doing in changing the user interface and, you know, allowing that whole process to work.
Mary: “Right, and just so our customers, so campgrounds know, adding… Adding a feature like this to software is not an easy feat. And it’s not a cheap feat. We’ve had to hire three or four new developers, each doing their own thing, to be able to bring this into the software. That said, the goal for the campgrounds is to be able to measure in real time, what the electricity is that is actually being used.
So, on our part, now that all of the backside development that Simon and his team have done, has been completed, to the campground, it’s basically seamless. They can go in at any time of the day and see in real time how much electricity is being used or has been used by that camper. And they can invoice them at any time automatically just by the click of a button. So, for the campground, this will be seamless. It’ll seem like it took nothing to get it available.
But a lot of times, what I hear from family owned campgrounds is ‘well, you’ve already got it made why do we have to pay for it? it’s already there, so why should we have to pay for it?’ and i would i would send that back to a campground that would ask that, ‘the campsites have already been built, you’ve already got the electricity in already and why do you have to charge people to stay there?’ So it does cost a lot to get this stuff put into place so that it makes it easy for campgrounds to be able to utilize it.
Mike: “That was well said. For software, we make investments; we’ll spend hundred aof thousands of dollars on software development, in new features and new technologies and it takes years to recover that investment as well.”
Mary: “I think it’s important for listeners to understand that Campground Commander is family owned. We are not corporate. We don’t have a big chunk of money behind us, just like many family-owned campgrounds. So anything that is done to improve our software and make it easier for campers or campgrounds to use, comes from our pockets. We are just like everyone else that’s in a family owned business; we have overhead costs and have to make ends meet. I say that because we are just like the customers we serve.”
Ben: “So, basically once a park owner installs the Wild Energy meters, this is pretty fluid then. There’s really not any work for them to do. This is pretty automatic as far as billing and what they have set up.”
Mike: “It is super simple. I was working with a couple of customers over the weekend. They were like ‘ok, we’re putting the receiver in, ok we’re putting the meter in” and I said ‘ok, now you see it.” It’s super simple, they’re kind of shocked about how quick it is.
When it comes to integration, we pass a key to Campground Commander. They put it in and turn it on. We make it very seamless for our customers.”
Mary: “Can you explain a little more about what the customers are going to need, and what they have going to do. Because once you’re system is up, you send us a key and we turn it on. So what does that entail on your end?
Mike: “On our end, the electric meter or a water meter – we haven’t talked about water, but we can do any type of utility. Once they get that meter placed, or on their pedestal, it starts transmitting the data instantly. And we have a receiver, just like a wi-fi access point. It covers a great distance area of campground; it picks up meters all over the place and starts transmitting the data instantly. The minute Campground Commander calls us and says ”what does site 11 say, we return that data right away. We worked every day to try make it very simple.”
Mary: “And we know how busy these campground owners are. They don’t have a lot of time to do extra stuff.”
Mike: “That’s a great point. We installed meters at a 250 site campground in 2 days.”
Ben: “Is there an app or anything where the customer can actually keep track of how much electricity they’re using? Or is that still in development?
Mike: “That’s been available for a while now. The minute we started getting calls ‘what did our meter say on this day last month’ we made that a web-based portal. And it helps, ee want to make the data transparent so there is no mistrust. The consumer can go right online, see their meter, track it, we give them daily summaries, so that they’re not surprised about their bill coming up. If the park is using the mobile app from “App My Community” you can see right in that app, the utility usage as well.
Ben: “What’s the overall goal? What kind of benefits will the owners get out of this. I guess it’s peace of mind, helping cover energy costs?”
Mary: “Family-owned campgrounds have to keep track of everything going out and coming in, money-wise. The over-all goal of this is to assure that they are seeing the bottom line of what their expenses are. And they know; they are not just guessing. I have campgrounds that say ‘I have a pretty good idea’. This takes that ‘pretty good idea’ away and assures the campground is not losing money. Our goal is always to help family-owned business and campgrounds succeed. As many people know, we lost our farm to corporate. And I’m not against corporate, but losing a farm to corporate really helps us to understand how hard it is to keep moving forward especially when there are so many corporate entities around, such as KOAs and Jellystones. Family-owned campgrounds and businesses have to stay in the know and keep their tools up to date when there are so many corporate entities around us.”
Ben: “Corporate entities is one part of it. It’s also important from a business aspect for owners to be on top of their expenses. yes you have competition and you need to be looking at your bottom line to make sure you can make investments in your business. This is smart to do.”
Mike: “It’s about efficient and effective operations of a campground. Cost recovery is important. You want to be in control of your costs. If you’ve built electric into your rate or you’re not doing it, and all of a sudden the electric company increases your rate, then that’s coming out of your pocketbook. And interestingly enough the smaller campgrounds have figured this out faster than the corporate ones, which is really positive and really interesting.”
Mary: “I would like to add one other thing, I hear campground owners say, they are afraid that the camping customers are going to be upset because they don’t have money for extra fees.
All three of us knows how much money it takes to have a camper. All three of us knows how much money it takes to travel with a camper. All three of us knows that if a person has the money to be able to have a camper and to be able to pull it around, then they have enough money to pay for electricity that they are using. It’s important for campground owners to recognize the fact that these people wouldn’t be coming into their campground if they didn’t have the money to pay to be there.”
Ben: “And campgrounds are different than hotels, but definitely hotels are doing the same thing. They’re building that into their costs; the electrical usage, cable, tv bills, the water. They’re doing everything in those room rates, so the park really has to do the same thing.
One of the questions we get around metering is that park owners are confused about whether they are allowed to do sub-metering in areas. Mike, what has been your experience in different states as far as the rules they allow for this type of metering.”
Mike: “We will need a whole separate webinar on that, because it’s very complex. We’ve gotten really good at knowing which states allow what.
We need to talk about some of the non-compliant solutions that are out there. You have to stay away from things that aren’t even compliant. That’s step number one.
Knowing your regulations is important. We will help people with that. We’re on calls every week about compliance and regulatory. That’s one of the benefits of working with Wild Energy. We’re all over that. We are partners with our customers to make sure they are compliant.”
Ben: “Mike, how would people reach you if they have questions?”
Mike: “Watch our monthly ad in Woodall’s in the digital or print publications. We have a website just like everyone else. Hop on the website and you can connect right with us: WildEnergyCo.com”
Mary: “Look for our ad in Woodall’s. You can also go to CampgroundCommander.com and join our mailing list. I send out a monthly email that keeps everyone up to date on new features. This is probably our fourth new feature this year. We continue to add according to what our customer base is asking for.”
If you would like to learn more about Campground Commander, check out our “Features” webpage or join us on social media. We’re on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Note: this transcript was generated automatically and not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
