POWERGRAMS

1 Alabama Power leads the nation in J.D. Power's inaugural study of utility websites, mobile apps, social, chat, email and text functions. "Utilities are among the lowest-performing industry groups when it comes to delivering distinct digital customer experiences, but some pioneers have found the secret to digital success," J.D. Power announced in March. The J.D. Power 2018 Utility Digital Experience Study evaluated customer perceptions of the 67 largest electric, natural gas and water utilities in the United States. It is the first-ever J.D. Power customer satisfaction study to incorporate biometric analyses (which track eye movements, facial emotions and voice tone), video verbatim interviews and detailed surveying to extract real-world customer perceptions, the company said. Alabama Power scored 879 on a 1,000-point scale, with SRP second at 872, MidAmerican Energy third at 870, and AEP and Atmos Energy tied for fourth with 866 points. Georgia Power was the only other Southern Company operating company in the top 30, scoring 853 for 15th place. The industry average, J.D. Power said, was 839 points. The study was conducted in collaboration with Centric Digital, a leader in measuring and navigating digital transformations. Centric Digital contributed an expert assessment to the study, including industry benchmarking, digital experience analysis and cross-industry insights. "Consumers have grown accustomed to receiving up-to-the-minute alerts on the status of at-home deliveries and being able to make checking account deposits with the cameras on their phones, but interacting with their utilities – whether to check usage, pay a bill or report an outage – oen seems like a step back into the dark ages of technology," said Andrew Heath, senior director of the Utilities Practice at J.D. Power. "Utilities know this is a problem, and many have put in place initiatives to address it. But, until now, there hasn't been a reliable playbook for what works. By probing deeper than ever before into real-world customer interactions with their utility's digital platform, we've been able to spotlight best practices." J.D. Power said that among the study's key findings is that although overall utility industry performance is weak, Alabama Power is among those "achieving digital customer satisfaction scores that are in line with top performers in other industries." The study is based on evaluations from 16,341 customers of the 67 largest electric, natural gas and water utilities. To be included in the study, utilities must serve 540,000 or more customers. The study was conducted December 2017 through January 2018. J.D. Power survey ranks APC digital experience No. 1 Alabama Power internet page part of the nation's highest-rated platform.

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