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November 1, 2006
You Can't Manage What You Can't Measure, Public Power Magazine, November-December 2006
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Tim Blodgett
Hometown Connections
303-526-4515
tblodgett@hometownconnections.com
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Market Research Helps Utilities Improve Customer Service
After working for 24 years as a marketing executive at Southern Co., Barry Echols arrived at Marietta Power as its new marketing director with a mission to help the utility pursue growth opportunities. Marietta Power serves more than 45,000 electric customers, is the largest municipal electric utility in Georgia, and is eager to play a pivotal role in the region’s booming residential and commercial real estate development. As his first step toward designing new marketing programs for Marietta Power, Echols selected SDS Research to conduct telephone surveys and focus groups for residential and commercial customers.
SDS Research of Salt Lake City, Utah, a Hometown Connections partner since 1999, offers American Public Power Association members discounted pricing and expertise in public power research.
As Marietta grows, the city-owned utility is facing competition for large commercial and industrial customers. In Georgia, commercial customers with a 900-kW load or higher may choose their electric supplier. For Marietta Power, primary competitors include Georgia Power and Cobb Electric Membership Corp. The Marietta Power management team agreed with Echols that their ambitious planning for a variety of new marketing initiatives should begin with baseline measures of customer opinion.
Marietta Power hired SDS Research to conduct residential, commercial and key account customer satisfaction surveys, focus groups for residential and commercial customers, and a saturation survey of residential customers.
Through the saturation survey, Marietta Power captured valuable baseline data about the types of home heating, water heating, home cooling, kitchen appliances, consumer electronics, and energy savings efforts in these homes. “The saturation survey offers a starting point for a variety of residential marketing projects,” Echols said.
Marietta Power designed the focus groups and the customer satisfaction surveys to identify what customers value most. “There were no major surprises,” Echols said. “Our customers point to reliability and price, above all. Customer research data give the utility staff a reason to change.”
The utility can use the research findings to define goals, such as improving the overall customer satisfaction score. The utility can also use the data to assign individual groups or departments specific goals, such as answering customer inquiries at a faster pace.
IID Energy, a division of California’s Imperial Irrigation District, is also among the more than 150 public power utilities to turn to the experts at SDS Research. IID Energy wants to improve customer service through a comprehensive customer communications program.
The utility saw a need for segmented customer satisfaction surveys for builder/ developers, residential, commercial, and key customers. Survey questions were specific to the areas of performance, image, community involvement, corporate citizenship, service reliability, request handling, employee courtesy, value of service, customer awareness of services, and effectiveness of communications. IID Energy selected SDS Research to do the study based on the quality of its proposal, price, reputation and experience with public power. The utility also considered SDS’s Hometown Connections affiliation a notable advantage.
IID Energy has had a good working relationship with Todd Morris and the SDS Research team, said Robert N. Fugett, energy service superintendent for IID Energy. “They are accommodating, customer-friendly and flexible. IID Energy staff has reacted positively to this relationship. And the Customer FAX Alert element of the surveys has provided us with additional information we found incredibly valuable. With this system, the customer surveyed has an opportunity to have a problem immediately reported by SDS’s call center to the utility via fax and resolved in a timely fashion.
“Our survey results indicate a high level of customer satisfaction,” Fugett said. “Areas identified for improvement include enhancing our Web site, expanding our radio presence for our Spanish-speaking customers and implementing stronger communication vehicles for our major projects.”
Susan Ryba handles marketing for Hometown Connections.
For more information, visit these links:
• Hometown Connections
• SDS Research
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