Duke Energy Carolinas slips in customer survey

Duke Energy Carolinas, which serves the Charlotte region, slipped in this year's J.D. Power and Associates customer-satisfaction survey of electric utility residential customers.

Duke Carolinas scored 641 on a 1,000-point scale, according to results out this week. That ranked it ninth-highest among 13 large utilities in the South.

In 2013 Duke had 656 points, ranking sixth-highest. In 2012 its 637 points ranked ninth.

A coal ash spill into the Dan River and subsequent federal grand jury investigation couldn't have helped Duke in the rankings, which are based in part on corporate citizenship.

But that wasn't the driving factor in the ratings drop, said J.D. Power official Jeff Conklin. More important, he said, were responses to survey questions about power quality and reliability, and about price. Duke Carolinas has raised rates three times since 2009.

Duke Energy Progress, the utility that serves Raleigh and the eastern Carolinas, did even worse in the survey. Its 637 points this year put it in 11th place in the region. That's a drop from 2012, before the merger of Duke Energy and Progress Energy, when the utility then known as Progress Energy Carolinas ranked sixth.

The survey measures customer satisfaction in six areas: power quality and reliability; price; billing and payment; corporate citizenship; communications and customer service.

Results nationwide showed improved ratings, J.D. Power said, due to improvements in corporate behavior and communicating with customers about outages. But electric utilities still lag in customer satisfaction compared to other home services such as cable TV and Internet providers.