Eversource ranked near the bottom of national customer satisfaction study

A national study of utility companies has ranked Eversource Energy near the bottom of the list in terms of customer satisfaction.

The 2022-23 American Customer Satisfaction Index Energy Utilities Study, which was released Tuesday, put Eversource in next to last place among 28 energy utilities included in the study. Only California-based Pacific Gas & Electric had a worse score than Evrsource, which has headquarters in Hartford and Boston.

Atmos Energy, a Dallas, Texas-based natural gas distribution company that serves 1,400 communities across eight states, had the best score of the companies included in the study.

Forrest Morgeson, assistant professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Director of Research Emeritus at the ACSI, said that to a large extent, the study’s results are a function oh how good a job the energy companies have done at keeping the power flowing to their customers.

“When customers go without power for extended periods of time, maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction becomes a challenge,” Morgeson said. “Residential customer satisfaction relies heavily on a utility’s ability to provide reliable service and restore power following an outage.”

Eversource’s showing in the study may have been due in part to a large outage that occurred right before Christmas last year. At one point, about 103,000 Eversource customers were without power. Eversource’s score of 65 out of 100 possible points. The score was down two percent from last year.

Mitch Gross, an Eversource spokesman, said Monday that company officials had not yet seen the results of the study that are specific to the utility.

“We always strive to provide excellent customer service, system reliability, storm response and more,” Gross said. “This year’s survey results reflect customer frustration with unprecedented energy supply costs and we share that frustration. While we have no control over the cost of energy, we’re committed to helping our customers through these difficult times by identifying ways to reduce their energy usage and connect them with programs and services available.”

The new rates for Eversource that took effect on Jan. 1 have increased bills by 31% to 42% for the vast majority of customers. Connecticut’s other legacy electric utility, The United Illuminating Co., was not included in the ACSI.

Energy utilities, when viewed as an entire industry, didn’t fair well in the ACSI study. The utility sector had the 10th worst score in a field of nearly four dozen industries.

Joel Gordes, a West Hartford-based energy consultant, said the result of the study should “serve as a little bit of a warning,” to Eversource said.

“Without seeing the metrics that went into the study, it’s hard to say where they have improved,” Gordes said. “But this should tell them that they still have a way to go.”

Eversource has 1.28 million electric customers and 249,000 natural gas customers in Connecticut.

H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media file The new rates for Eversource that took effect on Jan. 1 have increased bills by 31% to 42% for the majority of customers.