March 28, 2024

SMECO Again Tops in Customer Satisfaction

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Posted for SMECO
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Overall customer satisfaction with residential electric utilities increases year after year with improvements in corporate citizenship and outage communications, according to an industry study that again finds SMECO with top marks.
The J.D. Power 2014 Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study, now in its 16th year, measures customer satisfaction with electric utility companies by examining six factors: power quality and reliability; price; billing and payment; corporate citizenship; communications; and customer service.

“Residential electric utilities have done a great job adding capabilities for proactive communications about outages and upping their corporate citizenship involvement. As a result, customer satisfaction levels have been improving over the past several years,” said Jeff Conklin, senior director of the energy practice at J.D. Power. “However, when comparing satisfaction levels with many other service industries—such as television and telecommunication in which there is a physical connection to a home with a monthly bill payment arrangement—electric utilities are not improving at the same pace in overall satisfaction. Consumers are becoming more familiar with a higher level of service in their daily activities with other service providers and, as a result, their expectations are rising.”

Holding top place for seven years shows Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative to be a leader in the utility field in both corporate citizenship and customer communications.

KEY FINDINGS
Satisfaction in all six factors significantly improves in 2014, most notably in corporate citizenship (590), which increases by 12 points, and in customer service, which increases by 16 points year over year—the largest increase among all the factors.

Satisfaction in all six factors reaches a six-year high in 2014, reflecting a steady improvement in the electric industry.

Communications satisfaction has steadily increased during the past six years, climbing to 592 in 2014 from 554 in 2009. Communication awareness has improved to 51 percent this year from 48 percent in 2013.

Overall satisfaction increases to 701 when utilities proactively communicate outage information regularly and clearly via the channels customers prefer, including utility-initiated phone calls, emails, text messages and social media sites, compared with 624 when communication is not proactive.

Power quality and reliability, an important driver of customer satisfaction, has increased to 702 from 692 in 2013 and 677 in 2012. Customers experience much shorter outages in 2014 than in 2013. Among customers who experience an outage, the average longest outage is 5.6 hours, compared with 12.0 in 2013.

Overall satisfaction among electric utility residential customers has increased substantially in 2014 to 647, up 8 points from 2013 and 22 points since 2012.

STUDY RANKINGS
The Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study ranks midsize and large utility companies in four geographic regions: East, Midwest, South and West. Companies in the midsize utility segment serve between 100,000 and 499,999 residential customers, while companies in the large utility segment serve 500,000 or more residential customers.

In the East Region PPL Electric Utilities ranks highest among large utilities in the East region,
followed by Duquesne Light; PECO; and West Penn Power, respectively. Among midsize utilities in the East region, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative ranks highest for a seventh consecutive year, followed by Penn Power; Delmarva Power; and Rochester Gas & Electric and Western Massachusetts Electric (in a tie), respectively.

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