A National Study Recognizes Top Utilities among Business Customers
LOS ANGELES (September 23, 2019) – Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the nation’s largest municipal utility, has been recognized as a Trusted Business Partner utility for a third time – once in 2016, 2017 and again this year by a national survey. The annual energy survey identified the top 20 utilities in the United States designated as the most trusted brands with LADWP being the top utility in the Western Region. The ranking is based on a national survey of commercial customers published in a 2019 Cogent Syndicated Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Business study released by Escalent, a leading human behavior and analytics firm.
“We are proud to be recognized for our strong commitment to customer service while still delivering on our core mission of providing reliable water and power service to our customers,” said Martin L. Adams, LADWP General Manager and Chief Engineer. “We constantly strive to break new ground as an efficient, customer-focused organization, so this is particularly rewarding. I want to thank our employees, especially those in our Customer Service Division, for achieving such levels of service.”
For its brand trust index, Escalent surveyed 12,577 business electric, natural gas and combination utility customers from the 78 largest U.S. utility companies. Trusted Business Partner designation is given to utilities that score in the industry top decile; have the top score in the region; or are within 20 points of the top regional score and above the industry range.
According to the report, LADWP received high scores on many fronts, including safety and reliability, customer and field service, communications effectiveness, and environmental dedication, which helped earn the trust of its customer base.
LADWP continues to implement customer-focused initiatives to meet the needs of its 1.5 million residential and business customers. The initiatives include ongoing customer communication enhancements such as the new text and email notification system for power outages; continuous improvements in the online customer space; and a dedicated team to serve its largest business accounts. LADWP also maintains a focus on regularly providing customers information on water and energy conservation and discount and assistance programs, and help to understand their bills.
For the 2018-2019 Fiscal Year, the Customer Service Division answered over 2 million calls with an average hold time of 71 seconds and handled over 25,000 emails.
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