Utility Business Customer Relationships Strengthen to Record Levels

Utilities have strengthened their relationships with their business customers to a record high score of 780 (on a 1000-point scale), according to Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Commercial, a Cogent Reports™ study from Market Strategies International published today.

This is a significant 32-point increase over 2015. The study measures Engaged Customer Relationships (ECR) through surveying business customers of 59 electric utilities on Brand Trust, Product Experience and Operational Satisfaction.The fuel for this growth was an increase in ECR among unmanaged accounts, business customers not assigned a utility account manager. These unmanaged accounts now score 776, up 34 points from last year. Managed business accounts continue to score higher at 789. Customers with key account managers also score significantly higher on Brand Trust, indicating the relationship value account managers have developed with these businesses.

“Utilities deserve a lot of credit for building strong relationships with businesses that drive local economies,” said Chris Oberle, senior vice president at Market Strategies International. “This year’s Customer Champions are strengthening engagement with unmanaged account customers by offering them choices on rates, demand-side management programs, energy management tools, distributed energy and other offerings.”

The study finds that business customer engagement is best managed by focusing on six customer segments: Management Controls, Urban Core, Home-Grown Success, Outsiders, People Powered and Managed Accounts. Among these customer segments, Management Controls scores highest on ECR at 812. This segment typically comprises 13% of utility business customers and tends to be clustered in health care, manufacturing, professional services, retail and technology.

Below is a list of utilities that have ECR scores high enough to be designated 2016 Business Customer Champions. These utilities represent best practices in how they have grown strong customer relationships, built trusted brands and developed operational satisfaction among their customers. Individual utility scoring performances can be obtained at 2016 Cogent Reports Utility Customer Relationship Scoring – Full List.

*Customer Champions were selected based on achieving a top quartile industry, top three regional score or being within 20 points of the top regional score on the Cogent Engaged Customer Relationships index (ECR).

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