We Hear You

After a white-hot summer and doubled energy bills caused by skyrocketing natural gas prices, one member’s comment made the most salient point: “The only reason I didn’t give {United} a 10 was because of this past bill. It was ridiculously high, in my opinion.”

That honest assessment has rung in his ears ever since he read it, said Landy Bennett, United’s chief administrative officer. It perfectly sums up what many gave as their reasons for scoring United’s electric service with an 86 during the third quarter in the latest scoring released from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI®).

“The score isn’t one we like to see,” Bennett said. “The employees work extremely hard to achieve 89s and 90 or above. We have really stopped to pay attention.  Unfortunately, we’re having to deal with these high energy prices in the ERCOT market, and we get it. We totally get what members are  saying.  In my 33 years at this cooperative, I have never seen prices to generate electricity at this level.”

Despite the lower score, United’s overall achievement still stands at least 10 points above the average scoring of both  the top investor-owned utilities and other cooperatives. The average TSE Services/Cooperative Insights benchmark group (other cooperatives participating with ACSI scoring) was 85.

After poring over the 30 pages of verbatim responses to the survey’s questions, Bennett said the overall responses dealt with three issues: high electric rates, questions regarding when members would get access to high-speed internet and electric reliability.

“The electric reliability really was of particular concern to us,” Bennett said. “Now, we knew about the rates, because we’d been getting questions from members all summer, and we also knew that members are anxious to get their internet service, even though this specific survey dealt with the electric side. But the fact that electric reliability was a common issue voiced by many members means we need to look deeper into that problem and find out more about it.

“I know some people may feel like we don’t take what our members have to say on these surveys to heart, but we really do listen and pay attention to what they have to say to us.”

United members who agree to give up a brief amount of personal time in their busy schedules to participate in regular quarterly member satisfaction surveys continue to play an important role in improvements the cooperative continually seeks to make in its service delivery to them, he said.

The ACSI® has been a national economic indicator for 25 years. It measures and analyzes customer satisfaction with more than 400 companies in 47 industries and 10 economic sectors, and it represents a broad swath of the national economy. The index’s scientific model provides key insights into the entire customer experience as well as indications of micro and macroeconomic performance and measures customer satisfaction and retention using four standardized questions.

The four questions focus on the following attributes: overall satisfaction, confirmation of expectations, comparison to an ideal utility company and intention to choose said utility again. Through Cooperative Insights data collection and the ACSI’s satisfaction metrics, United receives a proven, independent third-party assessment of member feedback.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index Energy Utilities Study 2021-2022 released this March, overall residential satisfaction crept up to 72.2 on a scale of 0 to 100 after several years of decline. The report found cooperative energy utilities, unchanged since the last report at 73 points, now share the top spot with municipal energy utilities, which climbed 2.8 percent. Investor-owned energy utilities stand at a steady ACSI score of 72.

United CEO Cameron Smallwood said he has tasked all department heads with reading the verbatims and reaching out to members to see where improvements can be made in areas under their control.

“While there is little we can do regarding the price of energy from Brazos, United’s power supplier,  that doesn’t mean that we give up on ensuring we deliver exceptional service and value to our members,” Smallwood said. “All of us are dedicated to improving this score in spite of the challenges this year has brought to us all.”