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At Pinnacle West and APS, our customers are our top priority. Because we place the customer experience at the forefront of everything we do, we continue to earn high marks for customer service. In the 2008, J. D. Power and Associates Residential Customer Satisfaction Survey, APS ranked second among all investor-owned utilities in the west.
We employ customer satisfaction surveys to sharpen our focus on serving customers well. Results have driven innovation, progress and performance at every level.
Additionally, the company conducts surveys among its residential and business customers who recently made a transaction through the company’s call center, in a business office, or online at aps.com. This ongoing customer satisfaction research is used to assess and continuously improve customers’ experiences with APS.
Customer service is an area of emphasis in our 2005-2010 APS Business Plan, which states:
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We will strengthen our relationships with our customers by providing continued excellent service and responsive products and services. These efforts will allow us to evolve beyond customer satisfaction to true customer loyalty. Customer loyalty becomes critical especially in light of our high growth, when customers must act as references for activities such as franchise elections, rate cases, and substation and line sitings. Satisfied customers are pleased with the service we provide them; loyal customers are willing to make a personal investment in APS by supporting our efforts
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The Challenge: Our customer base continues to grow at a rate three times the national average. This growth, coupled with ever greater customer expectations, increases the demand on each employee to create sustained value by providing safe, reliable, fairly priced energy; friendly and knowledgeable service; and community involvement. We will measure our progress through customer satisfaction tracking surveys. The rapid growth within our service territory provides both opportunities and challenges
An important part of a sustainable energy future is an educated public. APS provides a variety of information and support services to help our customers become better informed users of electricity. Much of this information is available to the public on our APS Web site, including the below links:
Conserving energy used to mean only one thing: saving the environment. Today, more businesses are realizing that using utilities wisely also has an impact on the bottom line. The APS Solutions for Business Program offers incentives to businesses, school districts, municipalities and non-profit agencies to improve energy efficiencies. The program helps APS customers reduce energy use by offering incentives, training and energy information services.
For example, the Joseph City Unified School District in Flagstaff recently received almost $20,000 from APS for the installation of energy efficient measures at two schools. The District installed two energy-efficient, air-cooled chillers at Joseph City Elementary School and Joseph City High School. Together the units will have substantial benefits by:
- Saving a projected 2.2 million kilowatt-hours of electricity over the equipment lifetime, or enough energy to power 156 homes a year;
- Saving the District more than $190,000 on energy bills over the lifetime of the equipment;
- Cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 986 tons;
- Saving more than 500,000 gallons of water.
“What an asset it is to have this program,” said Julie Pastrick, president and CEO of the Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce. Pastrick says her community is always looking at energy as a top priority and said this program will make a big difference in her community because of energy costs. But, she said, they don’t have to wait until they have a huge amount of capital. "Small businesses can take small steps,” she said. “They don’t have to implement everything all at once. Thinking long term is I think what’s important.”
Recently, the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station earned almost $6,000 in rebate funds from APS for replacing more than 1,300 incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs. The new bulbs will save the station more than $140,000 throughout their five-year span. The lifetime energy savings from these bulbs is equivalent to the annual energy use of 54 homes. Using these new bulbs will also save 340 tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetime of these bulbs. APS and Air Station representatives gathered for a ceremonial check presentation in February, 2008.
APS also has a number of energy efficiency programs for our residential customers which are discussed in more detail in the Demand Side Management section of this report.
In addition to offering low-income assistance programs for our customers, APS has conducted more than 20 low-income summits designed to educate social service agencies about these programs and help them better serve our low-income customers. Since 2006, representatives of more than 300 social service and tribal entities have attended these presentations.
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