Public Power - September/October 2007 - (Page 60)

CUSTOMER SERVICE Making Lemonade By Jim Paterson It began with badDistrict,Omnews. aha Public Power one of the nation’s biggest publicly owned utilities, had to raise rates after more than a decade of no change—and it was going to raise them significantly, 15 percent over five years. A number of issues – including critical power plant construction and improvement projects—made the increase unappealing, but essential, for the utility and its more than 300,000 customers across 13 counties in southeast Nebraska “It was very important that we have the support of the community—and we are over halfway through this five-year period, and we have had minimal negative press or opposition regarding our increases,” said Larry Ciecior, division manager for customer service operations. In fact, not only was there no bad press, OPPD continued to get the highest ratings for its customer service efforts from J.D Power, which recognized the utility for six years in a row. “Our customers were okay with paying more money for our product because they believe OPPD has been a good steward of their resources and has held rates below the national and regional average while maintaining reliability,” Ciecior said. OPPD turned a negative into a positive by making certain that customers “perceived value from the product, by as- suring power was reliable, the bills were accurate and the staff was knowledgeable and solution-focused,” Ciecior said. Prior to the rate increase, OPPD operated with a simple philosophy throughout the organization: customer service had to exceed the expectations of the customer, and every concern from a customer initially would be treated as if it were entirely legitimate. Every employee—even those who did not regularly have direct contact with the customer followed that credo. They also had goals. “For instance, at the corporate and business unit level, the goal is to have 85 percent of our customers providing us with scores in the top three boxes - 8s, 9s or 10s on a scale of 1 to 10. We have various Confidence is a matter of Backed by 50 years of experience and 400 million units of know-how up to 800 kV AC and 500 kV DC Sediver toughened glass insulators exclusive qualities Infallible & easy visual inspection Safe live line working Low life-cycle cost No ageing Sediver Business Unit Tel.: 1-514-739-3385 info.sediver@seves.ca www.sediver.fr 60 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2007 PUBLIC POWER

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - September/October 2007

Contents Washington Focus 10 Questions Public Power (Every) Week Training Tomorrow’s Work Force What’s in Your Wallet? U.S. Lags in Broadband Deployment Now What? For Engineers Safety Community Broadband For Governing Boards Human Resources Hometown Connections Customer Service DEED Index to Advertisers Advertisers by Category Parting Shot

Public Power - September/October 2007

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