Business Customers Give Pacific Power High Marks in Satisfaction Study

Despite an economic downturn that has many business customers grinding their teeth, Pacific Power customers are feeling good about the electric utility’s level of service in J.D. Power and Associates’ 2010 Electric Utility Business Customer Satisfaction Study released February 3.

Pacific Power ranked second among comparably sized electric utilities in the West, moving up one spot from the 2009 study. Pacific Power also scored 26 points above this year’s segment average.

“It is a tremendous honor to be recognized by our customers in this way,” said Pat Reiten, president of Pacific Power. “So many of our business customers are experiencing struggles every day and it would be easy for them to unload some of their frustration on their power company. But their responses to the survey show that they are seeing the value that our relationship with them, our dedicated employees and our system investments are providing, and that is immensely gratifying.”

The J.D. Power and Associates study is based on interviews with representatives of more than 16,000 U.S. businesses that spend between $500 and $50,000 monthly on electricity. More than 90 utilities serving a total of more than 11.7 million business customers are included in the study. Overall customer satisfaction is measured by examining six factors: power quality and reliability; billing and payment; corporate citizenship; price; communications, and customer service.

Nationally, overall customer satisfaction averaged 646 on a 1,000-point scale in 2010.

Pacific Power customers showed strong satisfaction with their power supplier by giving the utility a score of 684. That is an increase from last year, when the company ranked third overall in the West with a score of 658. In the 2009 study, J.D. Power and Associates did not break out the West into large and midsize utilities.

“Providing excellent customer service is a key business principle that has been part of Pacific Power since it started 100 years ago,” said Pat Egan, vice president for customer and community affairs. “In today’s challenging economic environment, our customers rely on us, perhaps more than ever before, to go above and beyond with customer service. We have taken extra measures to do outreach with customers to ensure they have information about the investments we are making and to provide them with information about energy efficiency and other programs to help businesses manage their power usage and costs.”

A key element of this outreach has been the creation of Pacific Power’s Business Toolkit. The toolkit is a package of free, online resources that provide customers advice and information for managing their energy use and costs.

“The latest J.D. Power and Associates study results demonstrate that these efforts and others are recognized by our customers,” said Egan. “Our employees deserve the credit for delivering exceptional customer service and high satisfaction levels and our customers deserve the credit for the strength of our relationship with them.”

Return to March 2010 Western Energy News

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