San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
CPS Energy’s rating with customers is rising from depths
Satisfaction with utility skidded after 2021 freeze, pandemic
Customer satisfaction with CPS Energy is inching up from lows reached as San Antonians were dealing with the economic strains of the pandemic and fallout of a deadly deep freeze in February 2021.
The city-owned utility’s residential customer satisfaction score rose to 77.6 on a 100-point scale in 2023 after hitting a fiveyear low of 74.4 a year earlier. The results, which were shared Monday with trustees, echoed improvement shown earlier this month by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which surveys satisfaction among the nation’s largest electricity providers. It found CPS’ score had improved to 73 from a low of 68 in its previous survey.
“As long as I’m CEO, these measures have to move with what’s happening real time in our industry,” President and CEO Rudy Garza told trustees. “And you can’t ignore what happened with the pandemic and Winter Storm Uri because it reset what the customers thought of us in those moments, which we have been trying to dig ourselves out of that hole.”
The utility’s score in the national index had fallen by 14% between 2021 and 2022. Garza said it’s clear the utility is making progress as it works to get back to the higher marks it had before the pandemic and Winter Storm Uri.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index wrote in the report with its national findings that while utilities continue facing challenges such as inflation, extreme weather, and increasing demand that it’s “all the more important to maintain strong relationships with customers that foster trust and engender patience.”
The highest score any energy company received on the national index survey was 75. The results were derived from more than 28,000 random customer interviews conducted from January to December. The survey shows that after four years of flat performance, utilities nationwide gained positive marks — up 4% across the board — for customer experiences.
Outages, average bills
CPS had set an internal goal of 75 for customer satisfaction in 2023. In 2019, before the pandemic, its score was 82.9 and rose in 2020 to 83.2.
CPS said it met its goal for 2023 but it sometimes adjusts its target for the coming year based
on its latest performance. In 2020, for example, its goal was 80.8. The goal for 2023 was reduced to 75 after it missed its 2022 target for a score of 79. Trustee John Steen said he was disappointed the utility “changed the goalposts” to make it easier for CPS to say it succeeded in improving satisfaction. Garza said the benchmark was adjusted to be “achievable but difficult to achieve” based on the realities of the industry.
CPS also shared other metrics with trustees, including one showing an increase in outage frequency. CPS pointed to 2023’s more frequent storms as the reason it exceeded its target
by 3%. Plant reliability scores, which chart generation performance, were at 94%.
It also looked at how its average residential bill compares with those in other major metros in Texas. According to data CPS compiled, costs for customers in San Antonio are still the lowest. CPS says the 12month average bill through January was $172.77 per month. The next lowest was El Paso at $186.97. Austin came in at $196.81 and the highest bill average was found in Dallas at $214.70.
Also Monday, trustees formally approved bylaws to create its renewed Community Input Committee after making tweaks to their language, including requiring
meetings to be conducted in person and not remotely. The new committee aims give residents a greater voice with the utility by adding four members from its prior iteration and including topic-focused subcommittees, including one on rates.
“What we did yesterday was yesterday, it’s about moving forward,” board chair Janie Martinez Gonzalez said of the data trustees received. “I’m very mindful that today’s results are great. But this is just the beginning of a lot more work that we have to do collectively as an organization to make sure that we keep going in the right direction.”