Metering.com 17 AUGUST 2016
CenterPoint Energy has scored the highest Texas among electric transmission and distribution service providers (TDSPs) on residential customer engagement.
This is according to the Texas TDSP Trusted Brand and Customer Engagement study, a Cogent Reports study by Market Strategies International. CenterPoint Energy scored score of 721 on a 1,000-point scale.
The study was conducted in the second half of 2015 and the first part of 2016 among, 820 electric service customers residing in Texas in six deregulated electric service territories. [CenterPoint Energy uses smart grid tech to alert consumers to outages]
Chris Oberle, senior vice president at Market Strategies International, said: “The focus and strategy CenterPoint Energy put into building strong relationships with its customers has really paid off, resulting in the highest ECR score by a significant amount.
“Operational satisfaction is the utility’s strongest-performing component, and there is now a great opportunity to leverage its superior operational performance into even deeper customer relationships with high value-added product usage.”
According to a release, CenterPoint Energy’s score is 30 points higher than the 691 market average. Customer engagement is scored based upon an Engaged Customer Relationship (ECR) index that comprises three components – operational satisfaction, brand trust and product experience. CenterPoint Energy posts are reported to be the highest score on each of these components among other Texas TDSPs.
Gregg Knight, senior vice president and chief customer officer for CenterPoint Energy, said: “In addition to achieving the highest ECR score, we are the only TDSP to score over 700 on safety and reliability, significantly higher than the market average on customer effort to obtain service, and significantly higher for community support. We are extremely proud of these results.”
CenterPoint Energy wins smart grid award
In related news, CenterPoint Energy has recently been awarded the International Smart Grid Action Network Award of Excellence and the Global Smart Grid Federation Best Smart Grid Project for 2016. [CenterPoint Energy recognised with ISGAN smart grid award]
The Houston-based Fortune 500 electric and natural gas utility has reportedly developed its smart grid systems over the past ten years, through which it has maintained stable, reliable power supply, reduced power outages resulting in millions in savings for its customers.
CenterPoint has completed its rollout of smart meters for its 3.4 million gas customers and 2.4 million electric customers in 2015. The utility said it will continue its efforts in grid modernisation, with the expansion of its metering and smart grid systems over time.
Kenny Mercado, senior vice president of CenterPoint Energy’s electric operations, commented: “We’re taking intelligent data from the grid, bringing it to the back office, and then we’re creating applications to allow us to do some things more intelligently to get power on faster, to restore service more efficiently and more accurately.
“The biggest driver of that metering technology was to bring meter reading data back to the operating competitive energy market.”