The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) released Wednesday its report on the customer service performance of the state’s major jurisdictional utility companies.
The Utility Consumer Activities Report and Evaluation (UCARE Report) showed a slight decrease in customer complaints about utilities and a slight increase in payment arrangement requests (PARs). It also found that the majority of customers who contacted the PUC’s Bureau of Consumer Services (BCS) for assistance during 2016 rated their experience as positive.
“The PUC is focused on ensuring that consumer issues are addressed in an effective manner, and this annual UCARE report is an important measure of the handling of consumer issues by utilities and the Commission,” PUC Chair Gladys M. Brown said. “Consumers should call the PUC’s Bureau of Consumer Services, at 1-800-692-7380, if they are unable to reach an agreement with a utility or are unsatisfied with the utility’s response to their problem.”
Overall customer complaints are currently at their lowest level in the last 10 years. Although consumer complaints about electric utilities dropped by 6 percent and complaints about natural gas companies decreased by 14 percent, electric and natural gas still made up approximately 77 percent of customer complaints.
The numbers of complaints involving telephone services increased by 34 percent compared to 2015 levels, and the number of complaints against water utilities rose by 14 percent.
PARs decreased across every category except for electric, which increased by 8 percent, and the “other utilities” category, which increased by 150 percent.
The report found that billing disputes were the most common type of complaint concerning electric (18 percent) and water utilities (33 percent).
Personnel problems were the most common issue reported in residential consumer complaints about the natural gas industry (17 percent). Customer complaints about the telephone industry most often involved unsatisfactory service (51 percent).
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