Public Power - January/February 2009 - (Page 44)

Customer Service Making Customer Communications Two-Way By Jim Paterson s energy customers are more sophisticated and demanding about their power needs, which means public power utilities have wisely moved to improve communications. Typically, however, the first thing that comes to mind is outgoing communications— promoting the utility and educating the public about what it does through public relations and advertising. But utilities also close the loop and allow the communications to flow both ways by surveying customers to find out what they want and to show the utility is interested in their opinion. “We regularly ask about customer attitudes or knowledge of energy issues, types of energy and environmental topics,” said Kate Cooper, a market research analyst at CPS Energy in San Antonio, which has about 685,000 electric customers. “We also ask about the customer perception of CPS Energy and their level of satisfaction.” Many utilities perform regular customer satisfaction surveys, but increasingly they are also getting opinions from customers more often and more quickly, covering narrow topics, such as the popularity of a product or service, or broader issues, such as load management or price hikes. In pursuing customer opinions, utilities use a wide variety of methods: Online CPS Energy either e-mails the survey or asks customers to access it online and looks for a response from 200 to 600 customers, depending on 44 January-February 2009 Today’ the issue. Such surveys allow the utility to quickly learn about attitudes toward a new product. The price can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand, said Cooper. Experts say if an incentive is used, a response rate of up to 75 percent is possible. But some worry that results are skewed since online surveys reach only respondents who may be more Internet savvy. Mail Steve Wilson, energy services coordinator for the Ames, Iowa, Electric Department, which serves about 25,000 customers, said his utility is satisfied with a return rate of 10 to 30 percent and generally veloping the survey, undertaking it and analyzing the results, according to Keith Owen, senior consultant with the Somerset Group, a firm that works with utilities on customer surveys. Wilson worries that phone surveys, which double the costs over mailings, may irk customers and skew results because older people are more likely than younger people to be home to take the call. Groups Wilson’s utility also uses focus groups to gather data. Some utilities get a new group to participate for each survey, but others have a panel they survey a few times a year. CPS Energy has a designated group of about 1,000 customers who are asked to participate, and uses about 350 for each survey. Ames surveyed commercial customers about their energy questions about the customer’s experience with the customer service representative and four questions about problem resolution. If a customer has a serious complaint or issue, he or she can ask for a supervisor call back and an e-mail alert is automatically sent to a management group to respond to the customer’s problem. Online services Two of the best-known online survey services are SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com) and Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com), which offer varying levels of reasonably priced surveys online. Survey Monkey charges about $20 to survey 1,000 customers per month and $200 annually for an unlimited number of contacts. The surveys for both firms can be customized using tem- Many utilities perform regular customer satisfaction surveys, but increasingly they are also getting opinions from customers more often and more quickly, covering narrow topics, mails about 500 questionnaires. One survey with two questions about load control, resulted in enough replies (using the included stamped return envelope) to have useful results in two weeks, he said. Phone Despite taking more time and costing more than online surveys, phone surveys are particularly useful to report on customer satisfaction, Cooper said. CPS Energy contracts with an outside vendor for phone surveys, which are typically used to gauge overall customer satisfaction. Their hope is to get a response from at least 400 customers. Consultants can offer critical help with demanagement education needs; other utilities have simply contacted customers with certain usage levels or product interest. Callers Kathy Burns, vice president of customer relations for the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tenn., uses automated telephone surveys to poll customers who have called the utility. Prior to transferring customers to a customer service representative, the automated interactive system will offer customers an opportunity to take an automated survey after they have completed their call. The survey consists of four questions about the utility in general, nine plates with branding and links to the utility’s Web site, and results can be examined a number of ways. Owen said some services that offer such easy and fast surveys do not allow users to do the analysis that is necessary and do not offer enough assistance with the design of the survey or how it is completed. “It is much more difficult than is self-evident to design robust surveys that yield meaningful data—and that’s what you are after.” ❚ Public Power http://www.surveymonkey.com http://www.zoomerang.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - January/February 2009

Public Power - December 2008 Contents Perspective 10 Questions Heat or Eat? Achieving Excellence in Nuclear Operations Training Grand Ambitions for Wind Power Visions of Green Carbon Trading Across The Pond Reliability Green Energy Customer Service DEED Hometown Connections Parting Shot

Public Power - January/February 2009

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