Issue link: http://alabamapower.uberflip.com/i/175902
CUSTOMER SERVICE Another Near Miss Alabama Power ranks second in Southern customer study Employees led company to near the top by safely providing reliable service. Alabama Power missed first place by just two-hundredths of a point in the annual Southern Company Value Benchmark survey released Aug. 28. It is the fourth straight year Alabama Power has been ranked No. 2 in the extensive polling of customers about their electric power providers. "Congratulations to all of our employees for another strong showing this year," said Executive Vice President Steve Spencer. "It shows our employees' commitment to meeting our customers' needs." The 2013 survey of 21 national utility companies places Alabama Power second with an 8.78 score, behind Gulf Power at 8.8. Mississippi Power, Georgia Power, Oglethorpe, NextEra Energy and PPL completed the upper quartile of companies. In results announced earlier this year, Alabama Power repeated as the No. 1 company for large business customers, achieving the highest utility company score ever at 9.52. The company ranked ahead of Gulf Power (9.48), Georgia Power (9.21) and Mississippi Power (9.08). Alabama Power ranked fourth in 2013 general business customer value with an 8.75 score for 2013, ranking behind Mississippi Power (8.85), Oglethorpe and Gulf Power. Alabama Power was fifth in the residential customer survey with an 8.074 score, to rank behind only Gulf Power (8.15) among sister companies in the top quartile. "Our continued high rankings in the surveys are because our employees are dedicated to taking care of all of our customers," Spencer said. 6 Utility customers are surveyed and then overall ranks determined each year based on "key drivers," which in each service category include: • Cost • Image • Reliability • Efficiency • Billing. We Energies led the upper-middle quartile of this year's survey for overall customer value with an 8.25 score, followed by Duke Energy, SCANA and TVA. TXU led the lower-middle quartile at 7.96, ahead of TECO, Dominion Resources and Reliant Energy. The lower quartile was MEAG, AEP, DTE and Exelon rounding out the scores at 7.5.