Dive Brief:

• Business customer satisfaction has reached an eight-year high, according to the J.D. Power 2016 Electric Utility Business Customer Satisfaction Study issued this week.
• Bolstered by improvements in communications, corporate citizenship and price satisfaction, J.D. Power reports overall satisfaction reached 704 in 2016, a hefty jump from 677 in the 2015 rankings for business accounts.
• Besides the jump in satisfaction, most notable in the survey is the upheaval at the top of the list: Only two of the eight utilities which topped the rankings last year maintained their lofty position.

Dive Insight:

Priorities for business customers of electric utilities are changing, and that is reflected in the results of JD Power's 17th survey.

"Communication and corporate citizenship are important to businesses," John Hazen, director of the energy practice at J.D. Power, said in a statement announcing the results. "Providers are doing a better job of proactively communicating with their business customers not only during an outage, but also on a regular basis to keep them informed of things such as energy programs offered, and to gather customer feedback."

Corporate citizenship in particular demonstrates that a utility is an "active business partner" in the community, the firm said.

"Business customers like to see their provider giving back, whether it's through charities and civic organizations or through economic development such as buying locally and creating jobs," said Hazen.  "Price is important to business customers, but not as critical as it is to residential customers."

Survey results this year returned 53 utilities with an overall satisfaction score above 700 this year — compared with only four just two years ago. 

"This clearly demonstrates that when providers make an investment in customer satisfaction and put in the effort, they can improve their customers' experiences," Hazen said.

The topped ranked utilities this year include:

East Large: Con Edison
East Midsize: Met-Ed
Midwest Large: Ameren Missouri
Midwest Midsize: Omaha Public Power District
South Large: Entergy Arkansas
South Midsize: JEA
West Large: SRP
West Midsize: SMUD

And of those eight, only Omaha Public Power District and SRP also took the top honors last year.

Key findings from the survey include: Satisfaction scores rise significantly when businesses have an assigned account manager; awareness of utility services and products is correlated with satisfaction; and satisfaction jumps when billing and payment alerts are made available.

Sector insiders expect utilities to continue enhancing customer-facing communications and offerings, especially around demand management and DERs, in 2016. 

“For years, utilities have treated demand-side-management programs as compliance measures,” Josh Lich, a director at Opower, told Utility Dive recently. But “rising customer expectations, program cost-effectiveness challenges, and regulatory pressures” are contributing to a rise in demand management programs that also emphasize what the customer is seeing.