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Can you provide customer satisfaction statistics and customer retention statistics for large Utilities in Canada and the US?
Hello, thank you for your question about the satisfaction and customer retention statistics for large utilities in the US and Canada. The short version is that Duke Energy, NextEra and Southern Company are the largest utilities in the US, in terms of market value. They respectively rank the 21st, the third and the fourth on the American Customer Satisfaction Index in 2016. Union Gas, Hydro One and BC Hydro rank the top in Canada for their interactive voice response systems and Energie NB Power, BC Hydro and Union Gas provide the best experience with their websites. Below you will find a deep dive of my finding.
METHODOLOGY
For the statistics in the US, I have used the reports of two prestigious and trustworthy organizations. The American Customer Satisfaction Index was founded by the University of Michigan and has been conducting research for 23 years while JD Power was founded in 1968. I rank the companies in terms of their market value and Duke Energy, NextEra and Souther Company are the largest.
It is very difficult to find an independent body that studies customer satisfaction in the energy industry in Canada. The numbers that I can find usually date back to the 2000s. However, I have found the Canadian utilities providing the best communication experience to customers through their interactive voice response systems (IVRs) and their websites.
The customer retention statistics were also difficult to retrieve. Instead, I have included the growth in the numbers of customers for the three largest US utilities and the names of the electricity retailers with the most number of complaints in Ontario, Canada.
THE US MARKET - AN OVERVIEW
In 2016, JD Power published its Electric Utility Business Customer Satisfaction Study from more than 21,000 interviews with business customers. The overall satisfaction is determined by six factors: power quality and reliability, corporate citizenship, price, billing and payment, communications and customer service. On the scale of 1000 points, Con Edison ranks the highest in the large segment of the east region's market. In the mid-west, Ameren Missouri scores the highest in customers'opinion. Entergy Arkansas ranks the highest in the south while in the west, that position is for SRP. (All rankings are among firms occupying a large segment in the market, serving at least 85,000 business customers).
The American Customers Satisfaction Index (ACSI), on the other hand, ranked Atmos Energy, CenterPoint Energy, and NextEra Energy as its top 3 in 2016.
However, when it comes to market values, the largest gas and electric utilities in the US as of Apri 22, 2016, according to Statista were Duke Energy with US $53.1 billion, NextEra Energy with US $52.8 billion and Southern Co with $45.3 billion. For the next part, you will find the satisfaction and customers statistics of these three biggest players on the market.
DUKE ENERGY
In the JD Power study, among business users, Duke Energy ranks the sixth place in the mid-west region with a score of 708 and Duke Energy-Carolina secures the fourth spot in the south with 728 points. The company does not appear on the top 10 of the customer satisfaction rankings chart in the west and east region.
Residential users provide a slightly different view of Duke Energy. The company ranks 6th in the mid-west region and Duke Energy Progress ranks 11th in the south with 680 points.
On the other hand, the ACSI, which is the only national cross-industry of customer satisfaction in the US, gives Duke Energy a score of 70 out of 100 in its 2016 reports. The results were obtained from interviews with approximately 70,000 people. This is the second year of decline in customer satisfaction for Duke Energy. The company stays near the bottom of the top 26 investor-owned utilities, the 21st position to be exact.
However, according to its financial report, Duke Energy's number of residential customers is growing, reaching 6.4 million residential customers in the second quarter of 2016. While the usage per customer was dropping, there was a 1.4% increase in the number of residential customers compared with the same period in 2015.
NEXTERA
NextEra has two principal subsidiaries, which are Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) and NextEra Resources. FPL has the third largest number of customers in the US.
FPL ranks the third in customer satisfaction according to JD Power's survey among business customers in the east region with 743 points. Among residential customers in the south region, it even ranks the highest with 724 points.
The ACSI also reveals that consumers have a high opinion of NextEra when the company tops the third place in its annual report of customer satisfaction scoring 76/100.
During the first quarter in 2016, FPL's average number of customers increased by 64,000 people from the comparable prior-year quarter.
SOUTHERN COMPANY
The Southern Company has many subsidiaries. The biggest are Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power and Mississippi Power.
In the JD's study for the business customers satisfaction in the south, Alabama Power ranks the second highest with 746 points. Georgia Power takes the 6th place with 718 points.
Meanwhile, southern residential users put Alabama Power and Georgia power in the second and third place respectively, just after FPL.
The Southern Company also ranks high in the ACSI. It is at the fourth place, also just below NextEra Energy.
In the first quarter of 2016, its financial report revealed that there was a 7.2% decrease in residential energy sales, a 0.7% decrease in commercial energy sales and a 0.8% decrease in industrial energy sales, compared to the first quarter of 2015.
CANADA UTILITIES MARKET-AN OVERVIEW
The biggest energy suppliers, as of 2015, in Canada included Suncor Energy, Imperial Oil, TransCanada, Canadian Natural Resources and Husky Energy.
It is difficult to find the satisfaction statistics for each of those five companies above. However, I managed to find the Canadian utility suppliers providing the best customer experience with its website and interactive voice response system (IVR). The Ontario Energy Board also promotes helpful information about companies receiving the most complaints in their region.
UTILITIES WITH THE BEST IVR SYSTEMS
The E Source Review of North America Electric and Gas Company IVRs published in June 2016 aims to determine residential consumers' level of satisfaction and engagement with the IVRs of their energy suppliers. It studies 90 IVRs in 3 dimensions: functionality, navigation, and delivery. Union Gas, Hydro One and BC Hydro rank the top in Canada.
UTILITIES WITH THE BEST WEBSITE
E Source also conducts a study for utilities' websites. In 2013, Energie NB Power, BC Hydro and Union Gas ranked the top 3 best utilities websites. The result was obtained by taking into account functionality and average usability.
UTILITIES WITH THE MOST COMPLAINTS IN ONTARIO
In 2015, there were 428.6 complaints against Sunwave Gas and Power Inc for every 1000 new or renewed low-volume contracts, according to the Ontario Energy Board. Sunwave, therefore, ranked first in the number of complaints in 2015. Active Energy had the second largest number of complaints with 45.2 complaints per 1000 low-volume contracts. Canada Energy Wholesalers ranked the third with 18.2 complaints per 1000 contracts.
The board also points out that in 2015, most of the complaints regarding the electricity retailers were about the contracts (50%), in-person sales (39.5%) and internet sales (4.8%). Regarding the natural gas marketers, 51.1% of the complaints were about contracts. 34.5% were about in-person sales while complaints about renewals took up 9.8%, making it the third most popular type of complaints.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, according to ACSI, when it comes to customers' satisfaction, Duke Energy ranks the 21st. NextEra ranks the third place while Southern Co ranks the fourth. In Canada, utilities that give the customers the best IVRs experience are Union Gas, Hydro One and BC Hydro. On the other hand, Energie NB Power, BC Hydro and Union Gas had the best websites in 2015.
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