Customer communications is a critical issue. Our customer service centers handle approximately 50,000 calls daily; in 2009, we responded to 17.8 million calls. When customers called us in 2009, they waited an average of 48 seconds before speaking with an AEP representative - up slightly from 47 seconds in 2008. Many more customers reached us online through our customer service websites. In 2009, registered customers logged in more than 2 million times to conduct business.

More customers are switching to receiving and paying their bills electronically. This saves significant resources; our goal is to shift approximately 900,000 customers to paperless billing by 2014. This would yield a potential cost savings of approximately $2.6 million annually. In 2009, more than 42,000 residential customers signed up to receive their bills online. Approximately 360,000 customers receiving their bills electronically and roughly 1.3 million paid their bills electronically monthly in 2009. Our goal for residential e-bill enrollment in 2009 was 300,000; we exceeded it with enrollment reaching 303,829. Ou 2010 target for residential e-bill enrollment is more than 383,000.

At the end of 2009, we stopped printing our monthly bill insert, Consumer Circuit, to reduce costs and because of increasing focus on electronic communication with customers. Though the cost was modest, the information it provided is available on AEP's website.

We receive quarterly data on customer satisfaction from Market Strategies International, an independent vendor that conducts benchmarking for a peer group of more than 100 electric and gas utilities. In 2009, five of AEP's seven operating companies placed in the first quartile relative to the national peer group in residential overall satisfaction; six of our operating companies placed in the first quartile for commercial overall satisfaction.

We saw the economic downturn affect our customers in 2009. While customer consumption of electricity declined, more customers had difficulty paying their bills. Account delinquencies among residential customers increased 6 percent from 2008. The hardship was not so severe for nonresidential customers, whose average delinquent account balances declined 7 percent from 2008.

As a result, we increased our support for low-income energy assistance programs. The primary source of assistance for low-income customers is LIHEAP. In 2009, AEP customers received more than $86 million from these programs. The total assistance received by customers was approximately 91 percent higher than in 2008. The primary reason for this unusual increase was that LIHEAP became fully funded at $5.1 billion for the first time in history during the 2008-2009 heating season. In prior years, funding for this program ranged between $1.8 billion to $3 billion.

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