Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating ranked near the bottom in commercial customer satisfaction among 26 Northeast utilities in a recent survey.
The state’s two largest electric utilities ranked second to last for 2012 in their respective categories among commercial and industrial ratepayers in cost, communications, quality, reliability, and corporate citizenship, according to a J.D. Power and Associates survey.
CL&P, based out of Berlin, ranked No. 11 out of 12 large electric utilities in the Northeast region, beating only the Long Island Power Authority in the survey released Wednesday.
“We work hard to meet the needs of all of our customers,” CL&P spokeswoman Theresa Gilbert. “We’re disappointed by the survey results and have already taken steps toward improving.”
CL&P scored 578 out of 1,000 in customer satisfaction points. CL&P’s sister company out of Boston – NStar, which also is owned by Northeast Utilities – was No. 8 on the list with a score of 619.
“Over the past year we’ve been working on two significant initiatives to improve the experience for our CL&P business customers,” Gilbert said. “We are expanding our account executive program to provide support for large and medium-sized business customers and will be launching a new business center this year. The center will provide a single point of contact for our business customers, including customized and proactive service on the full range of customer needs such as billing, energy efficiency, competitive energy supplier options and power restoration information.”
UI, based out of New Haven, ranked No. 13 out of 14 mid-sized companies in the Northeast region, beating out only Washington, D.C. electric utility Pepco. UI scored 582.
“Price is a major driver,” said UI spokesman Michael West. “Businesses run on financials.”
West said UI score much better on surveys with residential customers than with business customers. While cost always will be a factor, the intangibles that UI brings to the table factor in with residential customers.
“Families don’t run their households on balance sheets,” West said. “Businesses do.”
One of NU’s other electric subsidiaries, Public Service of New Hampshire, scored 615 in the mid-sized category, ranking No. 9.
Looking across all regions, CL&P’s score of 578 gives the utility the third worst score in the country, behind the Long Island Power Authority and Pepco. UI’s score of 582 gives the utility the fifth worst score in the country, coming in just better than Tennessee-based MLGW.
The J.D Power survey was conducted from April to June and September to December. Those times coincide with the finalization of NU’s merger with NStar in April and Superstorm Sandy in October, which created the third power outage in 15 months that knocked out electricity to nearly 1 million Connecticut ratepayers.
“We know that the needs of our business customers vary from the needs of our residential customers and we are confident that these efforts will improve satisfaction going forward,” Gilbert said of CL&P.
