Most customers satisfied with NU Public Utilities

Survey also sought employee perceptions

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- While seen as good overall, the results of surveys gauging New Ulm Public Utilities' customer satisfaction and employee perceptions could be better.

As outlined Tuesday night at the Public Utilities Commission meeting, with nine of 10 respondents giving a positive response, the utilities' rating ranks up there with the average utility surveyed by Satisfaction Development Systems of Salt Lake City, Utah, according to its development services director, Dale R. Inkley.

"The problem is in the 'excellent' category," he said. "The overall excellent rating of 29 percent is significantly lower than the average of 42 percent for the utilities we have measured."

The majority of employees rated New Ulm Public Utilities as a good place to work, with a combined rating of 50 percent. Those who rated the utilities as a fair or poor place to work made up 42 percent of the respondents and only 8 percent rated it as excellent.

Inkley noted that no manager/supervisor respondent rated the PU as an excellent place to work while 10 percent of the non-supervisor employees did.

While the random-sample size for the customer satisfaction survey varied according to the question asked, Inkley said, employee perception responses were based on a respondent rate of 77 percent which Inkley described as "very good."

Almost 90 percent of the customers surveyed rated their electrical service as very reliable. Only one in 10 had experienced an electrical service problem in the past 12 months, but only one in 10 considered what they pay for the service an excellent value.

Almost nine of 10 respondents rated their water service as positive while over nine in 10 rated their gas service as positive. Nearly a quarter rated both water and gas service as excellent.

Almost seven in 10 rated the monthly bill they receive as very understandable, and almost all reported no problems with the billing department in the past 12 months. About four in 10 rated all aspects of customer service as excellent.

The survey found that most respondents were very aware of the services offered but few found much value in the payment options offered.

"What was somewhat surprising was that of those customers surveyed, only 46 percent knew that New Ulm Public Utilities is a municipal utility," Inkley said.

Survey results led to three recommendations by SDS, including:

* Identifying ways to improve overall communications with the people it serves "as it is important that the majority of customers understand the relationship between the utilities and the municipality, and the advantages to the citizens.

* Having craft employees act as "outside" ambassadors in providing a most valuable image by which users will judge the utilities' overall value and performance because electricity and gas services are most vulnerable to competitive influences.

* Identifying excellence as the most important goal in making a good organization even better.

In evaluating employee perceptions, Inkley said his firm had classified factors such as working environment, salary, benefits, etc., as "hygiene factors" and non-physical factors such as chance for advancement, feeling a part of the company, open communication channels and the like as "motivators."

Inkley said that while there did not seem to be serious problems to deal with, "we suggest taking a positive approach, rather than concentrating on the negatives, in making the good better."

SDS' recommendations were for improving communication both laterally and vertically, helping employees feel valued by the company and providing more management and supervisory training.