On May 18, 2016, J.D. Power released the results of a comprehensive, inaugural study measuring customer satisfaction of water utilities serving 400,000 or more residential customers in four U.S. regions. Of significant interest is that California Water Service (Cal Water) ranked first in the West Region out of 24 utilities in that region’s survey. Additionally, another investor-owned water utility, Illinois American Water , ranked first in the Midwest Region.
The 2016 Water Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Survey, conducted in March 2016, is based on 28,000 online interviews with customers of the 84 largest water utilities in the U.S. The questions examined 33 attributes within six factors: delivery, price, billing and payment, conservation, communications and customer service.
Several California Water Association members were included in the survey, and they compared favorably with many of their public agency counterparts in the West Region. In addition to Cal Water, California American Water, Golden State Water Company, San Gabriel Valley Water Company and San Jose Water Company were all considered.
In a company press release, Martin A. Kropelnicki, Cal Water President and Chief Executive Officer said, “We are committed to providing our customers with quality, service and value. We are humbled by our customers’ feedback and remain dedicated to fulfilling this promise through each member of our customer service, operations, water quality, engineering, information technology, communications and other support teams.”
