Engaging Customers
At PG&E, we recognize and value the rich diversity of the customers and communities we serve. We strive to reflect this diversity in our employee population, to work with customers on a local level, and to better understand their energy needs and improve the overall customer experience. This focus includes working directly with customers in a variety of ways to help them manage their energy costs.
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(Skip to main navigation)Our Approach
PG&E’s Customer Care organization, led by Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Chief Customer Officer, spearheads our efforts to deliver the best experience to every customer. By leveraging the power of customer data, maintaining a local presence in the communities we serve, integrating customer feedback and actively communicating with customers about energy options, tools, programs and savings, we work to drive long-lasting customer engagement and satisfaction.
Serving Customers Locally
We maintain cross-functional leadership teams, led by local managers in each region to address local issues, collaborate with representatives from across PG&E and incorporate the needs and concerns of our customers into operating decisions.
Integrating Feedback
PG&E regularly uses customer surveys, focus groups and other forms of research to obtain feedback and insights that help drive our decision-making and improvements in how we serve our customers. We also encourage employees to use an internal hotline to elevate a customer issue so we can address it in a timely fashion.
Saving Customers Energy and Money
PG&E offers a full portfolio of savings options for customers, with an increasing focus on tools and programs to help customers reduce their energy use and save money. We offer some of the industry’s leading programs and incentives for energy efficiency, demand response and solar energy, as well as rate options for electric vehicles, financial assistance programs and other resources. This portfolio includes the Solar Choice program, which allows customers who are unable to install private solar to buy up to 100 percent solar power. We also plan to offer a network of EV charging stations, as approved by the California Public Utilities Commission.
Making It Easy
A growing number of our residential customers prefer to manage their own energy use. In an effort to meet their needs, PG&E offers options via mobile phones, the web, email and social media, giving customers many choices for how to interact with us.
The vast majority of our customers can access hourly data on their energy use and compare their use to that of similar homes in their neighborhood. The redesigned Your Account online tool analyzes the drivers of energy use in a customer’s home on an annual basis—including appliances, heating and cooling—and provides tips and savings recommendations to help that customer take action to manage energy costs.
Small and medium business customers can also use PG&E’s Business Energy Checkup to find energy-saving ideas that can lower their operating costs, and programs such as energy efficiency financing to address upfront cost barriers.
Our energy statements provide clear and easy-to-understand information, with numerous options for customers to pay their bills. Our mobile website allows customers to get real-time outage information; start, stop or transfer service; or pay their bill from their mobile devices. Customers can choose to receive messages however they prefer—text, email or phone—and after nine months, they can use My Rate Analysis to make sure they’re on the right rate plan.
In addition to digital offerings, PG&E continues to offer self-service capabilities over the phone, such as reconnection service via our Interactive Voice Response technology. Many of our communications are also available in multiple languages and formats, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog and large print.
2016 Milestones
We remained focused on responding to the unique needs of our customers in 2016, with a number of highlights:
- Redesigned the Your Account online tool. The tool analyzes a customer’s energy use and provides energy-saving tips and recommendations for energy efficiency programs and incentives to save energy and money. It was redesigned to make it easier for customers to find ways to manage their energy usage and added an improved bill comparison feature and home energy checkup.
- Engaged local leadership teams. Throughout our service area, our local, cross-functional leadership teams continue to help us strengthen local relationships and more quickly identify and resolve local customer concerns.
- Improved the customer experience for digital-first customers. We continued to give customers more choice and control over how they do business with PG&E and our customer service infrastructure. Automated options and mobile solutions make it easy for customers to access the services they care about using the devices they prefer.
- Expanded customer data platforms. We maintained a service called Share My Data, which allows the approximately 58,000 enrolled customers to share their energy usage data with select third-party service providers, who can use the information to advise customers if energy products and services, such as private solar, may be right for them.
- Continued strong growth of social media properties. PG&E produces customer-centric content for social media properties on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. In 2016, PG&E’s social media platforms were essential, real-time communication tools during large storms and events, like summer wildfires, as well as a voice of warning to watch for scammers. Both customers and news media turn to our social channels and our news site at pgecurrents.com for updates from PG&E.
- Improved outreach to diverse groups. By creating more materials and media services in languages other than English, as well as actively working with local organizations, we saw strong participation in our programs for low-income customers. For example, our CARE program, a discounted rate plan, achieved 88 percent participation by eligible customers.
Measuring Progress
We are committed to improving satisfaction for both residential and business customers. In 2016, our customer satisfaction score increased to 76.1, from 75.5, exceeding our target of 75.7. For 2017, our target is 76.4. We recognize the need for continuous improvement and are more focused than ever on communicating with customers about safety, our rates and the technologies and tools we have available to support sustainable customer energy solutions.
| 2014 | 76.5 |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 75.5 |
| 2016 | 76.1 |
To measure customer satisfaction, we use a random-sample, proprietary customer survey that is conducted quarterly by an independent third party. The customer satisfaction score is determined by averaging customers’ overall satisfaction with our products and services using a 1 to 10 scale, indexed to a score from 1 to 100. This metric also serves as one of the measures we use for determining performance-related employee compensation, because employees from all PG&E lines of business contribute to improving the overall satisfaction of our customers.
Each year we also benchmark our customer satisfaction results against best-in-class performing gas and electric companies, using data from J.D. Power’s Customer Satisfaction Studies.
Looking Ahead
As we work to create a better customer experience, we will continue to leverage sophisticated data and analytics, provide more self-service options for customers and make new technologies available to better tailor our services.
Through the work of our local cross-functional teams, we will also continue to strengthen PG&E’s local presence and relationships with customers and other stakeholders in our communities.