Tipton said she repeatedly asked the company to install a meter and twice got nasty letters informing her the house needed a meter. That infuriated me. The meter finally turned up a few weeks ago, Tipton said. They seem to be very efficient in getting a person out to turn something off, or get the bill out to you. Xcel sends the bills to her mother, who shares the same last name, once owned the house and now lives a few blocks away, Tipton said.
Customer service has dollars attached to it.
If Xcel doesn't meet standards set by the PUC, the company owes customers a refund. Nor are Xcel's customer service problems unique to the industry. A consumer satisfaction survey conducted annually by the University of Michigan Business School found utilities selling natural gas and electricity had a 69 percent satisfaction rating on a score of 0 to 100. That's an 8 point drop from the previous year. Xcel, rated for the first time, received a 65.