5.3 ERMUSR 05-09-2023 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING TO: FROM: ERMU Commission Tony Mauren — Governance & Communications Manager MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: May 9, 2023 5.3 SUBJECT: Customer Satisfaction Survey ACTION REQUESTED: Receive the Customer Satisfaction Survey Report — Q1— 2023 BACKGROUND: In December of 2019, the Commission voted to replace the customer satisfaction survey component of the Utilities Performance Metric and Incentive Compensation (UPMIC) scorecard due to low response rates. As ERMU places a high value on customer feedback, staff researched and pursued alternative approaches to track satisfaction, with a plan to consider returning this metric to the UPMIC scorecard. In December of 2021, ERMU entered into a contract with Q Market Research to survey ERMU's residential customers, seeking to measure overall satisfaction with services and programs. The survey also focused on key topics including reliability, value, ease of doing business, quality, customer concerns, and communications. Initially Q Market Research was contracted to distribute two rounds of 1,000 surveys in 2022, each consisting of 500 emails and 500 letters. With a goal of reaching all customers prior to the implementation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure, that distribution was increased to two rounds of 2,500 surveys in 2023, again evenly divided between emails and letters. The second distribution this year will be in the third quarter and ERMU will meet its outreach goal with two distributions of 2,500 surveys in 2024. DISCUSSION: Surveys were sent on February 13 to residential customers near Joplin Street, Upland Avenue, Jackson Avenue, downtown Elk River, the southeast corner of Elk River, and northeast of 197" Avenue and Highway 169. A total of 282 responses were received for a response rate of 11.3%. Key findings in this round include overall satisfaction with ERMU is generally high, ERMU gets medium -strong grades for community involvement, the communications experience with ERMU is positive while not perfect, value for the money was lower than other scores but remains high on an absolute basis. ERMU's Net Promoter Score (NPS) which has been in the "Excellent" range went to the "Good" range in this distribution. As the report's executive summary explains, the NPS was likely lower because of the twin pressures on families of inflation and higher utility rates. It also could have been impacted by Page Iof2