JEA Improves Significantly in 2013 J.D. Power 2013 Electric Residential Customer Satisfaction Study

2013-07-17

Jacksonville, FL - J.D. Power and Associates released its 2013 Electric Residential Customer Satisfaction Study today. JEA ranked 20th in the South Midsize utility segment. JEA improved their standing in the South Midsize utility segment by 51 points over their 2012 score and moved ahead of 10 other utilities in that segment ranking. 

In addition, JEA had the largest point increase of any utility in the Study. And nationally, JEA surpassed 56 utilities for a ranking of 60 out of 126 utilities.

Also read: Price and Billing/Payment are Primary Drivers of Increased Overall Customer Satisfaction with Electric Residential Utilities

JEA’s Board and new CEO and Managing Director Paul McElroy set a bold focus and goal for JEA to improve customer satisfaction dramatically using the JD Power and Associates Residential Customer Satisfaction study. JD Power is a global expert on customer opinions, research and data, and has a strong foundation in the utility industry as to what drives customer satisfaction.

“JEA has made a commitment to put our customers first,” said JEA Board Chair Mike Hightower. “We want to ensure our customers get the most value from the utility service we provide them, and we understand the importance of empowering them to make choices about how they safely and effectively use our services. We are committed to listening to and serving our customers as our top priority.”

JEA continues to find ways to engage with its customers, improve outage communications, enhance self-service tools, and increase communications about energy and water conservation, safety and programs. JEA is also responding to customers’ requests to make deposit policies more reasonable and easier by working on improving various aspects of the current deposit policy.

“Despite operating in a rising cost environment, the JEA team is working diligently to improve productivity, and hold rates down for our customers,” said JEA CEO and Managing Director Paul McElroy.

“I sincerely want to thank our customers for their support and feedback to help us improve,” McElroy continued. “I also want to thank our dedicated employees for their heart of service and commitment to make JEA the best for our community.” 

JEA employees will continue working to make a difference. Eighteen customer satisfaction initiative employee teams were kicked off in February to work on improvements to relationships with customers, and another 20 were kicked off last month. These employee teams are tackling everything from policies to employee volunteering. JEA employees have doubled their volunteering in the community. In addition, 178 JEA employee volunteers participated in the recent HabiJax 25th anniversary build by donating their time and skill to help build 25 homes over a four-day period. 

JEA’s Two Cents Worth Group, a 2,500 volunteer customer advisory group has also been critical to JEA’s success. The Two Cents Worth Group provides feedback on everything from newsletter format to website content and structure, with resounding success. As a result of their input, the JEA website, jea.com, was ranked ninth in the country by customers through the JD Power website study done earlier this year.

While JEA is proud of its movement in one year, it will continue its focused effort to further improve its customer satisfaction. JEA’s goal is to be in the first quartile nationally by 2016. 

JEA is the seventh-largest community-owned electric utility in the United States and one of the largest water and sewer utilities in the nation providing electric, water and sewer service to residents and businesses in northeast Florida. 

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