Community Corner
Pepco Rated ‘Most Hated’ Company in U.S. in Latest Consumer Satisfaction Rankings
Utility company scores lower than even Bank of America and PG&E, while Comcast comes in fourth.
It’s no big surprise around here, given and continuing interruptions this summer in some parts of the area, that Pepco is now the ‘most hated’ company in the country in the latest rankings compiled by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
The local utility company scores only 54 out of a possible 100 points on the satisfaction index, putting it well behind such long-standing sources of consumer complaints as Bank of America and Pacific Gas & Electric out in California.
The litany of complaints against Pepco is well-known. There have been, for the record, 70 percent more outages for Pepco customers than for customers of other big-city utilities (and the outages last twice as long, on average). In the last year, Pepco’s score compiled by the ACSI fell by 16 points, one of the sharpest drops ever.
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Just this week the District Council's Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs held a hearing on the Reliable Electric Service Act of 2011. The bill, introduced by Ward 3 Councilmember Mary M. Cheh, is aimed at improving Pepco service reliability and would impose stiff financial penalties on Pepco for future poor performance.
Cheh's bill would require Pepco to perform in the top half of utilities by 2016 and the top quarter by 2020—or face deductions to their return on equity.
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According to a press release from Cheh's offfice, the legislation received strong support from public witnesses at the hearing (except Pepco).
Comcast, the cable giant that is a major player in D.C. area, also rates extremely low in consumer satisfaction, placing fourth on the ‘most hated’ list with a score of 59 out of 100 points.
(Full disclosure: This writer finally became completely exasperated with Comcast a few years ago for reasons dealing with service and billing, but is relatively pleased with Verizon FIOS.)
Common complaints against Comcast include poor communication with respect to upgrade and billing changes, lost channels for those upgrading to the digital boxes, and the old standbys of long wait times for repair and—of course—steep price hikes.
For a capsule of the ‘consumer satisfaction’ rankings, visit the Business Insider website.
