We are in business to deliver comfort to customers by providing reliable, affordable, high-quality power “24/7.”  The cost of electricity has increased significantly in the last five years, which has been particularly challenging during the recession. Most of the 11 states in our service territory were already below the national median income and suffered disproportionately from the recession.

Our customer service centers are often the first point of contact for customers who wish to communicate with us. Last year, we spoke with more customers, for a longer time per call. We spent an average of approximately 4.5 minutes per call discussing high bills, the recession and other issues. The number of calls coming into our customer service centers daily increased over 2009 levels yet remained just under 50,000. Consequently, the amount of time customers had to wait on hold to talk to us – called the average speed of answer – was longer.
 
At the same time, the number of customers conducting business with us online increased. Customers logged in to our utility websites to pay bills or conduct other business with AEP more than 4.2 million times in 2010. This is nearly double the online customer contacts in 2009. The Internet is much more efficient for customers and for AEP. It can reduce the number of calls we handle and on-hold wait times. By the end of 2010, approximately 433,000 customers had switched to paperless billing and more than 1.1 million, primarily residential customers, were conducting online transactions with us.

We survey our customers regularly to assess our service performance and to set internal targets to ensure customer satisfaction, which remained high in 2010. We combine our surveys, conducted by a third party, with industry benchmarks of our peers to create a Customer Satisfaction Benchmarking Index. In 2010, AEP placed in the 82nd percentile relative to our national peer group in overall customer satisfaction, which exceeded our goal of reaching the 75th percentile. Satisfaction levels reached the 91st percentile relative to a national peer group for large commercial industrial customers, the 81st percentile for residential customers and the 74th percentile for small commercial customers.

Account delinquencies can be a measure of economic growth or downturn. Residential account delinquencies increased significantly, up 48 percent from 2009. Nonresidential customers were not immune to the economic climate, either, as the average delinquent account balances for these customers increased approximately 10 percent from 2009.

We work with customers to keep them from being delinquent, providing payment plans and other forms of assistance. We connect them with energy assistance programs when appropriate. AEP customers received approximately $75.3 million in energy assistance last year, almost 13 percent fewer than 2009.

We received the 2010 Betty Ann Simon Memorial Award by Dollar Energy Fund, a private Pittsburgh, Pa.-based, organization that helps those in need to pay utility bills. The award recognizes a leader who has made significant contributions to the low-income community through advocacy, low-income program advancements, program creation, legislation and program funding that help families achieve self-sufficiency.

We also connect customers with energy efficiency programs that can help them to reduce their energy use and costs. As an example, AEP Ohio’s gridSMART® lighting incentive program was a key driver for a large big-box distribution center complex in Columbus, Ohio to complete a major lighting project in 2010. The project is expected to reduce the customer’s annual energy use by 11.91 million kWhs and was made possible through collaboration between our National Accounts team, AEP Ohio’s energy efficiency and consumer programs team and the customer. In Longview, Texas, our Southwestern Electric Power Co. partnered with a nationally recognized big-box retailer to test LED lighting technology in its parking lot. The project replaced 1,000-watt metal halide lamps with more efficient 210-watt LED lights. The estimated annual energy savings is more than 144,000 kWhs. Read more about our energy efficiency projects in Climate Change.

We strive to be readily accessible when customers need us to answer questions, respond to outages or provide service assistance.