BUSN 258 Week 3 Case Study

Consolidated Edison company of New York or Con Ed is a utility company that services the five boroughs of New York City and parts of Westchester County. Con Ed supplies electric, gas and steam to over three million customers and prides itself on its reliability. While Con Ed does hold a positive image in their customers’ eyes some incidents recently have left a negative image in many customers’ eyes. Con Ed has been in the news due to two gas explosions in New York City where there have been fatalities as well. These come at a time when Con Ed is trying to persuade customers to covert from oil to gas through incentives. Customers feel oil is safer due to recent events they see on the news.

I interviewed Mr. Stampfel a Specialist from the call center to ask him some question s on the importance of customer service and relations. Michael has 9 Customer Service Representatives reporting directly to him, and has been a Customer Service Representative himself before being promoted into management. When Mr. Stampfel was asked about the role and importance of Customer Service to the organization he replied, “ Look around, this whole floor is dedicated to customer service, without customers there would be no Con Edison. We take customer service and satisfaction very seriously. Our CEO even added enhancing the customer experience into our principles.” (Stampfel, personal interview 2015).
When asked the three most common issues faced by the organization Stampfel said
“The three main issues we get on the phone are billing issues, the customers always feel we are overcharging them, customers with service interruptions, and then there’s the customers that want to participate in the incentive programs.” (Stampfel, personal interview 2015). Mr. Stampfel did then explain some of the incentive programs that customers tried to get involved in. There were two main programs one was a free smart thermostat with wifi capabilities installed by con Edison at no charge. Customers seemed to be interested in getting involved with the solar program as well to save on bills and do something for the environment.

BUSN 258 Week 3 Case Study

Through my research I was able to find that Con Edison is the most reliable utility in the nation and won the 2014 Outstanding System Reliability Award for 2014. The senior vice president of electric operations said the company’s top priority was to meet the energy requirements of new Yorkers safely and reliably (Lundin, 2014). Con Ed also has implemented a $1 Billion dollar storm-hardening project that is meant to reduce the number outages during storms. One part of this program is the installation of smart switches which are designed to reclose to clear faults with the need to send con Edison crews to the location to fix the fault which speeds up restoration times drastically (Marketwire, 2014).

In my opinion Consolidated Edison does seem to be a very customer oriented company. While I do believe that Con Ed does an overall good job with Customer Service, customer issues can turn into opportunities to create lasting customer relationships. (Timm, 2014) There may be some room for improvement in the customer relations area. The storm-hardening program is a good way to increase reliability and retain more customers. The company does say that customers will see the benefits of the program through reliability I feel this more of a system process. I would recommend another phase of the project more personalized towards the smaller customers. There can be a way to isolate more outages for residential customers. Electrical equipment could be raised to prevent flood damage. Con Ed could even add more transformers to its secondary residential area to make larger outages more concentrated and easier to restore. As for the smart switches that have been installed, it seems these switches are only compatible with overhead fed electric distribution systems. Con Edison has overhead distribution but the majority of Con Edison’s system is underground. I would also recommend developing some type of smart switch for the underground networks as well to reduce duration and size of large area outages.

BUSN 258 Week 3 Case Study

I do feel that Con Edison’s incentive programs are a positive thing for customer relations and retention. Since the de-regulation of utilities there have been many energy supply companies competing for customers by offering lower rates on electricity and gas. With other companies offering lower prices, there is much to do to hold on to your customers. Con Ed is also taking steps in the right direction by encouraging customers to produce their own electricity through solar programs and incentives. It is a positive for bot the company and the customer. The customer will be self-sustaining during generation also selling back electricity into Con Ed’s system meaning less generation is needed by Con Ed, as well as less power substations needing to be built. Con Ed is also locking in those customers for years to come due to solar equipment installed on homes. I do feel that incentives could be bigger on all programs, to feel more rewarding to customers, but overall Con Edison Company of New York does an excellent job with customer service.

Sources

Marketwired. (2014, August 4). Con Edison prevents thousands of outages With sandy improvements. Marketwire, Obtained form Devry student Library.

Stampfel, M. (2015, July 9 ). Personal Interview. Michael Stampfel stamfelm@coned.com (718) 666-4558
Specialist
Consolidated Edison

Timm, P.R. (2014). Customer service: Career success through customer loyalty, 6th edition. Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. (page 157)

http://www.smartgridnews.com/story/con-edison-wins-oustanding- system-reliability-award/2014-11-26

www.coned.com