Utility customers are still troubled by customer service issues such as long wait times (both in-store and online), poor communication, and poor physical facilities.
These are among the findings from the Office of Utilities Regulation’s (OUR’s) latest annual Mystery Shopping research, conducted in the latter part of 2024.
The Mystery Shopping study across the four major utility providers—Cable & Wireless Jamaica Limited and Columbus Communications Jamaica Limited trading together under the brand “FLOW”, Digicel Jamaica Limited (Digicel), Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. (JPS), and the National Water Commission (NWC)—highlights these significant, recurring service challenges that negatively impact customer experience.
The common issues observed also include inadequate customer service engagement, inconsistencies in communication, and poor physical and digital infrastructure. While some agents demonstrated professionalism and knowledge, customer experience was undermined by inefficiencies, lack of accessibility, unclear processes, and poor responsiveness.
The annual Mystery Shopping research enables the OUR to assess the quality of customer service offered by the regulated utility providers across the various channels. The findings help to inform the OUR’s engagement with service providers over the next period and the focus of its regulatory interventions.
The 2024 findings revealed an average score of 66 per cent, up from the 54 per cent performance level of 2023 across in-store, call centres, websites, social media, and the mobile app. The best-performing providers were FLOW and JPS, at 70 per cent, as shown in the table below.
Digicel (82 per cent) and FLOW (89 per cent) had the strongest call centre experiences, while in-store customer experience among all the providers hovered between 62 per cent and 78 per cent, with Digicel scoring the lowest, moving from 56 per cent in 2023 to 46 per cent in 2024.
The overall customer experience for the online/digital interface, including social media, mobile app use, and website chats, recorded a disappointing average score of 58 per cent. In particular, the average score for customer experience on social media remained low even though moving from 32 per cent to 48 per cent across all service providers. The performance is disappointing given the providers’ push to have utility customers conduct business, such as bill payment, service requests, etc., in their digital space.
“These findings indicate systemic gaps in customer service protocols, operational efficiency, and infrastructure readiness across the service providers,” said the Office of Utilities Regulation in a release.
They also suggest that utility providers could benefit from adopting standardised practices where feasible, enhancing physical and digital infrastructure, and focusing on customer-centric engagement to transform customer experiences, it added.
A coordinated effort is necessary to raise the bar for utility service delivery and ensure consistent, high-quality interactions for all customers across all service providers, the OUR noted.
The data collection for this Mystery Shopping exercise started in August 2024 and ended in October 2024.
