Duke Energy Earns High Marks in Overall Customer Satisfaction

Employees' focus on business needs and service opportunities of the company's commercial, institutional and manufacturing customers has earned Duke Energy high marks in the Key Accounts National Benchmark (KANB) survey.

In the 2007 KANB survey, Duke Energy ranks Number 5 in the nation with a score of 85.1 percent of customers very satisfied.

The study ranks customer satisfaction only at the enterprise, or holding company, level. However, the relative strength of Duke Energy across the regional operating companies should be noted:

  • Duke Energy Carolinas would rank Number 2 in the southern region with a score of 87 percent.
  • Duke Energy Ohio/Kentucky would rank Number 2 in the Midwest region with a score of 84.4 percent. This reflects a 13.2 percent increase over last year’s results.
  • Duke Energy Indiana would rank Number 3 in the Midwest region with a score of 80.4 percent. This is an 8.4 percent increase over 2006 results.

Overall, top performers in this year's survey are continuing to raise the bar. The 10th-place utility garnered a score of 78 percent very satisfied. In the 2006 study, Duke Energy Midwest (Cinergy at the time of the survey) was the 10th-place utility at 71.8 percent. In the 2005 study, the 10th-place utility had a score of 68.9 percent.

Conducted annually by TQS Research Inc., the KANB survey uses extensive interviews of sites of major manufacturing facilities, large hospitals and universities. The survey benchmarks approximately 60 electric utilities to determine an overall customer satisfaction ranking. The rankings are based on the percent of customers who were "very satisfied" as defined by a score of 8, 9 or 10 using a 10-point scale.

  • For the Carolinas, the highest overall drivers of satisfaction are power quality and price.
  • For Ohio/Kentucky, the highest overall drivers are handling of contacts and image.
  • For Indiana, the highest overall drivers are energy efficiency, handling of contacts and reliability.

"We continually look for ways to improve our customer experience and offer services that enhance our relationship with customers," said Ted Schultz, vice president of energy efficiency. "The KANB survey provides valuable feedback from our customers as we strive for continuous improvement and sharing of best practices across regions.

"As these survey results indicate, employee commitment to our customers is as strong as ever across Duke Energy. We need to celebrate these outstanding results and realize we have work to do to maintain our customer satisfaction rankings in the face of rising prices."

The top ten utilities from this year’s survey are as follows:

Top 10 Utilities
2007 Key Account Benchmark
Overall Customer Satisfaction

Rank

Utility

Very Satisfied

1

MidAmerican

93.1%

2

Pacific Power

88.4%

3

Southern Co.

88.3%

4

Rocky Mountain Power

88.2%

5

Duke Energy

85.1%

6

Clark Public Utilities

80.7%

7

SCE&G

79.6%

8

E.On

79.1%

9

Alleghany Energy

78.7%

10

AEP

78.0%