Following a year in which it took heat over its response to prolonged blackouts, Consolidated Edison Inc. enjoyed a sunny assessment in J.D. Power and Associates”™ annual survey of business satisfaction with electricity service.
New York City-based Con Edison is the dominant utility in Westchester County.
Among 14 large utilities in the East, Con Edison ranked fifth for business customer satisfaction.
In 2006, Con Edison was next to last in the East, ahead of the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) which again lagged its regional peers in this year”™s study. LIPA ranked next to last nationally this year.
J.D. Power indicated that utilities nationally achieved record highs this year for business customer satisfaction, despite price increases. According to J.D. Power Vice President Alan Destribats, the improvements are the result of a wider variety of payment options, including electronic billing.
Con Edison spokesman Christopher Olert said the company”™s improved J.D. Power ranking may have been bolstered by hundreds of customer service lines Con Edison has added in the past 18 months.
J.D. Power is expected to issue its more-closely watched residential customer satisfaction ratings this summer; Con Edison and LIPA hope to improve on their cellar status among residential consumers last year.
J.D. Power ranked utilities by:
Ӣ power quality and reliability;
Ӣ customer service;
Ӣ company image;
Ӣ billing and payment;
Ӣ price; and
Ӣ communications.
Allentown, Pa.-based PPL Utilities was the best performing company among Con Edison”™s Eastern peers, a position it has held five of the last seven years. California”™s Sacramento Municipal Utility District led the nation on the poll by J.D. Power.
In 2007, Con Edison bolstered its profits by 26 percent to $929 million, as revenue increased 10 percent to $13.1 billion. Con Edison asked the state Public Service Commission (PSC) to add $1.2 billion in revenue this year via a rate increase.
In mid-February, PSC aired plans to hire an outside auditor to vet Con Edison”™s construction planning and operational efficiency, allocating up to 18 months to complete the process.
PSC recently concluded a similar audit that examined Con Edison”™ blackout response procedures. In a 350-page report, the commission recommended more than 60 changes at Con Edison, which had four major outages in 2006 that knocked power out to an aggregate total of 215,000 homes. The company needed nine days to fully restore service following a July heat wave that year.
Con Edison may have gotten a dry run on any new changes following last week”™s deluge that left more than 9,000 Westchester customers without power.
In the meantime, the company is charging toward a June 28 deadline to negotiate a new labor contract with many of its 15,200 employees. In a 2004 contract passed by a 550-vote margin, Con Ed members of Local 1-2 of the Utility Worker Union of America won annual pay increases ranging between 3.25 percent and 3.5 percent through this year.
