A new report shows United Illuminating and Eversource Energy ranking next to last in their respective segments for customer service among Eastern U.S. energy providers. They are ranked fifth and sixth lowest respectively among large and midsize energy providers nationally.
United Illuminating has a score of 651 points out of a possible 1,000, according to the J.D. Power 2016 Electric Utility Business Customer Satisfaction Study released today. Eversource Energy scores 655 points in the study.
“We are constantly striving for excellence in delivering reliable energy and superior customer service. This is our first year polled as a single company under the Eversource name. We continue to build on our improving results over previous years to ensure our investments in reliability and our commitment to customer communications are reflected in our ranking in future surveys,” Al Lara, a spokesperson for Eversource said.
The national average score is 704 in 2016, an increase from 677 in 2015 and the highest level in eight years. J.D. Power said performance improvement is driven by a sharp year-over-year rise in satisfaction with communications (+55 points), corporate citizenship (+45) and price (+43).
The study, now in its 17th year, measures satisfaction among business customers of 102 targeted U.S. electric utilities, each of which serves more than 25,000 business customers.
Overall satisfaction is examined across six factors (listed in order of importance): power quality and reliability; corporate citizenship; price; billing and payment; communications; and customer service. Satisfaction is calculated on a 1,000-point scale.
“Communication and corporate citizenship are important to businesses,” said John Hazen, director of the energy practice at J.D. Power, in a statement. “Providers are doing a better job of proactively communicating with their business customers not only during an outage, but also on a regular basis to keep them informed of things such as energy programs offered, and to gather customer feedback.”
