CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Although customers are highly satisfied with their utility service this year, ratings for enhanced utility offerings, specifically those that help manage bill amounts, have dropped. Adoption of digital services and consumption management programs is also beginning to stall. This signals that customer satisfaction does not translate to the use of enhanced utility offerings and the industry must focus on developing and marketing these offerings for future success. These findings are from the 2019 Cogent Syndicated Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement: Residential study from Escalent, a top human behavior and analytics firm.

The study benchmarks and trends performance of 140 utilities on the Engaged Customer Relationship (ECR) scorea composite index of Service Satisfaction, Brand Trust and Product Experience performance based on over 67,000 nationwide customer interviews. The 2019 overall industry ECR score is 713 (on a 1,000-point scale), which is unchanged from last year.

To continue to succeed with customers in the future, the utility industry needs to become proficient at developing and marketing enhanced offerings and ensuring customers are engaged. Younger Millennials and Generation Zers now compose 20% of the utility market and score utilities significantly lower on customer engagement this year. The study shows these younger customers expect innovation, digital convenience and social responsibility. They will continue to demand utilities deliver on those expectations through enhanced offerings.

Engaged Customer Relationship Score

2019

2018

Change

Gen Zers (1824)

690

710

-20

Millennials (2534)

709

722

-13

Gen Xers (3554)

712

706

6

Late Boomers (5564)

712

711

1

Early Boomers (65+)

726

722

4

Customers currently have push-pull relationships with utilities where they appreciate the basic service they receive but arent seeing the value in engaging beyond that, said Chris Oberle, senior vice president at Escalent. We also see that the best utilities are those that are emerging as great product marketers. The future belongs to utilities that innovate to move from service providers to value-added partners in the eyes of their customers.

The study designates 40 utilities as 2019 Customer Champions. These utilities have higher offering usage and provide value-added offerings and services, and are best positioned for future customer success and industry innovation.

2019 Cogent Syndicated Utility Customer Champions

AEP Ohio

Elizabethtown Gas

Piedmont Natural Gas

Ameren Illinois

Florida Power & Light

PPL Electric Utilities

Atmos Energy South

Georgia Power

Public Service Company of Oklahoma

Avista

Idaho Power

Puget Sound Energy

Black Hills Energy Midwest

Kentucky Utilities

Salt River Project

Cascade Natural Gas

MidAmerican Energy

Seattle City Light

CenterPoint Energy South

National Fuel Gas

Southwestern Electric Power Company

Columbia Gas South

New Jersey Natural Gas

TECO Peoples Gas

Columbia Gas of Ohio

NW Natural

Texas Gas Service

ComEd

OPPD

UGI Utilities

CPS Energy

OUC

Washington Gas

Delmarva Power

Peoples Gas

West Penn Power

DTE Energy

Philadelphia Gas Works

Xcel Energy South

Xcel Energy West

The following are ECR scores for the 140 utilities covered in the study.

East Region Utility Brands

Engaged CustomerRelationship index

Service type

Delmarva Power

714

Combination

PECO

711

Combination

Con Edison

710

Combination

PSE&G

708

Combination

RG&E

704

Combination

National Grid

701

Combination

BGE

686

Combination

Eversource

684

Combination

NYSEG

668

Excerpt from:
High Utility Customer Satisfaction Isn't Translating to Use of Enhanced Offerings - Business Wire