The majority of electric and natural gas customers were satisfied with the way customer service representatives handled their calls in 2012, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the Public Utility Commission.

The 2012 Customer Service Performance Report measures the customer service performance of the state’s major electric and natural gas companies.  This year’s report summarizes data from 2010, 2011 and 2012.  It allows customers to see how well companies are responding to their questions and enables utilities to see how their level of service compares to other companies.  The data falls into two categories: company-reported performance information and customer survey results. 

The company-reported data measures telephone access to the companies, such as the percentage of calls that were answered within 30 seconds, abandoned by customers or received a busy signal.  Calls in the “busy-out rate” represent those attempted calls that received a busy signal or message.  The report also measures how often companies failed to read meters, issue bills and promptly respond to customer disputes.

The customer surveys measure customer perception of access to the company; employee courtesy and knowledge; promptness and timeliness of a response or visit; and satisfaction with the handling of the interaction.  All of the utilities contracted with a common market research firm to conduct the surveys of their customers.

The full report is available online.

9/23/2013