Utilities Win Back Favor as Customers Find It Easier to Do Business With Them

LIVONIA, Mich., April 02, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new Cogent Syndicated report from Escalent reveals that utilities are finally gaining ground in the struggle to make it easy for their customers to do business with them. For the first time since 2021, the study’s first-quarter Customer Effort Score has improved, increasing by 10 points year-over-year to 723 (on a 1,000-point scale).

Consumers rate utilities on 20 attributes, which together form the Customer Effort Score, a measure of how easy it is to do business with a utility.

Since early 2022, utilities have struggled to recover from scoring declines as customers seeking bill assistance faced challenges in understanding their bills and finding cost-saving offerings.

Forty utilities lead the 2025 scoring comeback, standing out as being “easiest to do business with” among 140 of the largest utility companies in the US. These and other findings are from the 2025 Cogent Syndicated Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Residential study by Escalent, a top data analytics and advisory firm with extensive energy, utility and brand experience.

Significant improvements in customers’ ease-of-use perceptions of voluntary utility offerings—particularly alternative power and fuel options such as rooftop solar, EV charger incentives and backup power generation, home service/protection programs, and rate options—have driven the comeback.

“As utilities expand their program portfolio—or simply do a better job of letting customers know about available programs—making those programs easy to use has proven to be a challenge for some,” said Suzanne Haggerty, director of syndicated research with the Energy team at Escalent. “Customers expect a streamlined user experience and the utilities recognized as Easiest to Do Business With this year are making great strides toward delivering that experience.”

Escalent is pleased to name these 40 utilities as our 2025 Easiest To Do Business With.

^{* Utilities designated as Easiest To Do Business With are selected based on having Customer Effort Scores in the top decile of the industry, the top score within their respective benchmark segment or within 20 points of the top benchmark segment score and above the industry average.}

The following tables reflect regional peer benchmark Engaged Customer Relationship scores among the 140 utilities surveyed.

About the Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Residential Study

Escalent conducted surveys among 59,793 residential electric, natural gas and combination utility customers of the 140 largest US utility companies (based on residential customer counts). The sample design uses a combination of quotas and weighting based on US census data to ensure a demographically balanced sample of each evaluated utility’s customers based on age, gender, income, race and ethnicity. Utilities within the same region and of the same type (e.g., electric-only providers) are given equal weight to balance the influence of each utility’s customers on survey results. Escalent will supply the exact wording of any survey question upon request.

About Escalent

Escalent is an award-winning data analytics and advisory firm specializing in industries facing disruption and business transformation. As catalysts of progress for more than 40 years, we accelerate growth by creating a seamless flow between primary, secondary, syndicated, and internal business data, providing consulting and advisory services from insights through implementation. We are 1,600 team members strong, following the acquisition of C Space and Hall & Partners in April 2023. Escalent is headquartered in Livonia, Michigan, with locations across the US and in Australia, Canada, China, India, Ireland, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, UAE, and the UK. Visit escalent.co to see how we are helping shape the brands that are reshaping the world.

Contact
Stephanie Salvadero, 734.838.5192
stephanie.salvadero@escalent.co

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