PROPOSED RULEMAKING
[52 PA. CODE CH. 54]
[28 Pa.B. 514] [L-970131]
Reporting Requirements for Quality of Service Benchmarks and Standards The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (Commission) on December 4, 1997, adopted a proposed rulemaking to establish uniform measurements and reporting requirements to allow the Commission to monitor the level of the electric distribution companies' (EDCs) customer service performance. After the Commission has received and analyzed an adequate supply of data from the proposed uniform measurements, it will develop quality of service benchmarks and standards which will be the subject of the future rulemaking. The contact persons are Mary Frymoyer (717) 783-1628 and Stephen Gorka, Assistant Counsel, Law Bureau (717) 772-8840.
On December 3, 1996, Governor Tom Ridge signed into law, 66 Pa.C.S. §§ 2801--2812 (relating to Electricity Generation Customer Choice and Competition Act) (act). Section 2807(d) of the act (relating to duties of electric distribution companies) is clear in it intent that utilities are to maintain, at a minimum, the current levels of reliability and customer service to their customers as they move toward competition. The purpose of the proposed regulations is to establish uniform measurements and reporting requirements to allow the Commission to monitor the level of the EDCs' customer service performance. After the Commission has received and analyzed an adequate supply of data from the proposed uniform measurements, it will develop quality of service benchmarks and standards which will be the subject of a future rulemaking.
Regulatory Review
Under section 5(a) of the Regulatory Review Act (71 P. S. § 745.5(a)), on January 16, 1998, the Commission submitted a copy of this proposed rulemaking to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) and to the Chairpersons of the House Committee on Consumer Affairs and the Senate Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure. In addition to submitting the proposed rulemaking, the Commission has provided IRRC and the Committees with a copy of a detailed Regulatory Analysis Form prepared by the Commission in compliance with Executive Order 1996-1. A copy of this material is available to the public upon request.
If the Legislative Committees have objections to any portion of the proposed regulations, they will notify the Commission within 20 days of the close of the public comment period. If IRRC has objections to any portion of the proposed regulations, it will notify the Commission within 10 days of the close of the Legislative comment period. The notification shall specify the regulatory review criteria which have not been met by that portion. The Regulatory Review Act specifies detailed procedures for review, prior to final publication of the regulations, by the Commission, the General Assembly and the Governor of any objections raised.
Public meeting held
December 4, 1997Commissioners present: John M. Quain, Chairperson; Robert K. Bloom, Vice-Chairperson, Concurring in result; John Hanger; David W. Rolka; Nora Mead Brownell
Proposed Rulemaking Order By the Commission:
On December 3, 1996, Governor Tom Ridge signed into law the act. The code revised 66 Pa.C.S. (relating to Public Utility Code), by inter alia, adding Chapter 28 relating to restructuring of the electric utility industry. The Public Utility Commission is the agency charged with implementing the act. The purpose of this rulemaking is to establish uniform measurement and reporting of customer service performance by the electric distribution companies to the Commission.
The act is clear in its intent that the level of customer service provided by the EDCs is to remain at the same level of reliability and quality under competition as was provided prior to competition. Under section 2807(d) of the act, customer services shall, at a minimum, be maintained at the same level of quality under retail competition. Section 2802(12) of the act (relating to declaration of policy) states that reliable electric service is of utmost importance to the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the Commonwealth. Thus the elements addressed by this rulemaking are presented to allow the Commission to ensure that the customer service and service reliability of Pennsylvania's EDCs remain at an adequate level.
This rulemaking addresses components of customer service such as telephone access, billing frequency, meter reading, timely response to customer disputes, the proper response to customer disputes and payment arrangement requests, compliance with customer service rules and regulations, and interacting with customers in a prompt, courteous and satisfactory manner. These components are interrelated and are important aspects of EDC customer service. Service reliability is also a very important aspect of the quality of customer service. However, the Electric Service Reliability Rulemaking at Docket No. L-l00970120 contains provisions for the EDCs to report data that measure reliability performance and thus we do not address reliability reporting in this rulemaking. However, the Commission intends to use the reporting at Docket No. L-100970120 to monitor the reliability of each EDC's distribution system along with the other measures specifically addressed in this rulemaking.
Only after the Commission has received and analyzed an adequate supply of data from the proposed uniform measurements will it develop quality of service benchmarks and standards for the EDCs. The establishment of benchmarks and standards will be the subject of a future rulemaking. The Commission also intends to measure and monitor the customer service performance of the electric generation suppliers and will take the appropriate steps to obtain uniform measurement from these entities at a later time.
Background
By order adopted March 13, 1997, at Docket No. M-00960890F0007 (March Order), the Commission solicited comments on a variety of potential quality of service measures such as business office access, complaint resolution, posting payments, billing adjustments, installation of service, investigations and repairs, appointments kept with customers, meter reading, service reliability indices and customer satisfaction surveys. Through the order, the Commission also asked the EDCs to describe their present monitoring of customer service performance, what performance standards they have set for themselves and what their performance history has been.
Each of the ten EDCs (Allegheny Power, Citizens' Electric Company, Duquesne Light Company, GPU Energy, PECO Energy Company, Pennsylvania Power Company, Pennsylvania Power & Light Company, Pike County Light & Power Company, UGI Utilities, Inc. (Electric Division), Wellsboro Electric Company, the Pennsylvania Electric Association (PEA), Office of Consumer Advocate (OCA), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' Pennsylvania Utility Caucus and Lebanon Methane Recovery, Inc. responded to the tentative order. Reply comments were filed by Duquesne Light Company, and Enron Power Marketing, Inc.
A review of the responses to the data requests outlined by the March order revealed that the EDCs have not measured their level of customer service quality with any degree of uniformity. On November 5, 1997, the Bureau of Consumer Services (BCS) held a meeting with representative of the EDCs. This meeting was to identify the benchmarks currently used by the EDCs to judge their own performance in the area of customer service and to clarify the information provided by the EDCs in response to the March Order. Representatives from the EDCs, the Bureau of Conservation, Economics and Energy Planning (CEEP), the BCS and Commission staff attended this meeting.
The discussion with the EDC representatives confirmed that existing EDC measurement of the quality of service components as outlined in the March order is non-uniform. Each EDC measures some of the components raised in the order, but no EDC measures all the components. Further, there are almost no standard methods of measurement that are used by all EDCs. The only exceptions are two of the reliability indices. All the major EDCs use the System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) and Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI) to monitor the reliability of their distribution systems and are able to supply historical data derived from these two reliability indices.
Because of the lack of uniform measurement by the EDCs, the Commission proposes to establish regulations to read as set forth in Annex A to develop uniform measurement and reporting on a select set of quality of service components. We agree with the comments of GPU Energy to the March order that uniform data will provide the Commission with the means to compare performance easily and quickly and that divergent data sets would require the Commission to compare ''apples and oranges,'' and would not present a true picture of performance.
The EDCs' lack of historical, uniform measurement and inability to report uniform data on many of the measures presented in the March order led us to revise our original proposal regarding the appropriate components to measure customer service quality. We have narrowed the scope of the quality of service reporting and measurement to the areas listed as follows. We believe that these components are fair indicators of the quality of an EDC's service to customers: Telephone Access to the Company, Billing, Meter Reading, Prompt Response to Customer Disputes, Customer Surveys, Regulatory Performance and the Reliability of Electric Service.
Many of the measures presented in the proposed requirements are directly related to Chapter 56 (relating to standards and billing practices for residential utility service), and should not require further data collection by the EDCs. The use of available data should also alleviate the EDCs' concern about their current financial constraints. We propose that the EDCs report to the Commission the number of customer disputes, as defined in § 56.2 (relating to definitions), for which the EDC did not render a utility report within 30 days of the filing of the dispute as required by § 56.151(5) (relating to general rule). Since § 56.202 (relating to record maintenance) requires utilities to preserve records of all customer disputes and complaints, this information should be available. We believe this statistic is preferable to a simple tally of the total number of customer complaints because it will indicate instances in which the EDC has not complied with the customer service regulations by not responding promptly to a customer's complaint. A complaint or dispute filed with a company is not necessarily a negative indicator of service quality. However, a company's timely response to a complaint is an important measure of customer service quality.
Similarly, to measure metering performance, we propose that the EDCs report information under § 56.12(4)(ii) and (iii) and (5) (relating to meter reading). We believe that these regulations represent the minimal criteria of meter reading performance. Further, this addresses differing viewpoints expressed by the EDCs about whether the percent of meters read or the number of meter reading errors is the most appropriate way to measure meter reading performance. Again, the use of reporting related to Chapter 56 mitigates any additional financial burdens on the EDCs.
Several measures which were presented for comment in the March order concerned aspects of service quality that the EDCs agree are important indicators of customer service performance. Among these were service installation, kept appointments, complaint resolution and nonemergency investigations and repairs. However, most of the EDCs have not necessarily measured performance in these areas and they believe that the measurement methodology suggested in the March order would be burdensome. Rather than measure several of these discreet activities, another option would be to measure customers' experience with these activities. Several EDCs noted that the use of customer surveys would be a more appropriate way to assess EDC performance in these areas.
Regarding the issue of survey uniformity, we agree with the EDCs that transactional customer surveys can measure many of these areas of customer service. Therefore, we have proposed specific customer survey reporting requirements using both transactional surveys of customers who had recent interactions with their EDC and general surveys of a cross section of each EDC's customer population. We agree with the comments of PEA and various EDCs to the March order that such surveys must be uniform in content, administration and analysis. Therefore, we propose that each EDC's customers be surveyed with the same survey questionnaires, using identical sampling and analysis procedures. In addition, we propose that an independent third party administer the surveys to the customers of each EDC and analyze and report the survey results to the Commission in a uniform manner.
We propose to measure the regulatory performance of the EDCs by using justified consumer complaint rate, justified payment arrangement request rate, the number of informally verified infractions and infraction rate. In response to the March order, most of the EDC's indicated that they believe that ''justified'' complaints and ''justified'' payment arrangement requests were more appropriate measures of regulatory customer service performance than ''volume'' of informal consumer complaints and payment arrangement requests. Under § 56.211 (relating to informal complaints), the BCS has established procedures for handling consumer disputes and payment arrangement requests as well as rules for determining on a case-by-case basis whether or not a customer is ''justified'' in coming to the Commission. ''Justified'' informal consumer complaints and payment arrangement requests are those cases in which, in the judgement of the BCS, the company did not comply with Commission regulations, reports, Secretarial Letters, tariffs or guidelines prior to BCS intervention. The procedures and rules are available from the Director of the BCS or from the Secretary of the Commission.
Under 66 Pa.C.S. § 308(d) (relating to bureaus), the BCS developed the justified informal consumer complaint rate and the justified payment arrangement request rate as two measures by which it can uniformly judge and report to the Commission the complaint handling performance of utilities. For the past number of years, the BCS has calculated and reported these rates in its annual report; thus the EDCs are familiar with them and what they represent.
Regarding infractions and the infraction rate, the Commission has procedures to ensure that EDCs and other public utilities conform to the standards of conduct for residential service established by statute and regulation. Through informal consumer complaints and payment arrangement requests the Commission is able to identify, document and notify utilities of instances where the utilities have violated a particular section of the regulations. The BCS tallies the number of informally verified infractions and reports them annually to the Commission. Beginning in 1997, the BCS has also calculated an infraction rate that compares a utility's number of infractions with its number of residential customers. We believe that an EDC's commitment to compliance with rules and regulations is an important indicator of good service quality to customers. Thus, we have proposed the addition of the number of infractions and the infraction rate as measures of EDC customer performance.
Additionally, we invite comments on the development of uniform questionnaires and on the use of an independent third party to administer the surveys. Specifically, we solicit comments on: (1) what process should be used to develop uniform questionnaires; (2) what parties should be involved in the survey development process; and (3) who should facilitate or provide leadership for this process. Similarly, we solicit comments on a process to secure a third party contract to administer the surveys and how contract expenses can be equitably shared among the EDCs. If any party has an alternative proposal to achieve uniform survey administration by a means other than the use of an independent third party, we would welcome comments regarding this alternative proposal, along with proposed regulatory language.
We are also interested in comments regarding the reporting format for both the EDCs and the survey administrators. We believe that all reporting should be uniform and by electronic submission and would appreciate comments in this regard.
The Commission reserves the right to waive any or all requirements of these regulations upon petition by an affected party under § 5.43 (relating to petitions for issuance, amendment, waiver or repeal of regulations).
Accordingly, under sections 2802(12) and 2807(d) of the Public Utility Code, 66 Pa.C.S. §§ 2802(12) and 2807(d), and the Commonwealth Documents Law (45 P. S. § 1201 et seq.), and the regulations promulgated thereunder, we shall institute a rulemaking proceeding to accomplish the objective described in the body of this order.
Therefore,
It is Ordered that:
1. A rulemaking docket shall be opened to consider the regulations set forth in Annex A.
2. The Secretary shall submit a copy of this order and Annex A to the Office of Attorney General for review as to form and legality.
3. The Secretary shall submit a copy of this order and Annex A to the Governor's Budget Office for review of fiscal impact.
4. The Secretary shall submit this order and Annex A for review by the designated standing committees of both Houses of the General Assembly, and for review and comments by IRRC.
5. The Secretary shall certify this order and Annex A and deposit them with the Legislative Reference Bureau for publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.
6. A copy of this final opinion and order and any accompanying statements of the Commissioners be served upon all jurisdictional electric companies, the Office of Consumer Advocate, the Office of Small Business Advocate, participants in the Commission's electric competition investigation at Docket No. I-00940032, the Electric Competition Legislative Stakeholders, all parties of record and the Universal Service and Energy Conservation Work Group.
7. Within 30 days of this order's publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, an original and 15 copies of any comments concerning this order and Annex A should be submitted to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, P. O. Box 3265, Harrisburg, PA 17105-3265.
JAMES J. MCNULTY,
SecretaryFiscal Note: 57-192. No fiscal impact; (8) recommends adoption.
Annex A
TITLE 52. PUBLIC UTILITIES
PART I. PENNSYLVANIA PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSION
Subpart C. FIXED SERVICE UTILITIES
Chapter 54. ELECTRICITY GENERATION CUSTOMER CHOICE
Subchapter F. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS FOR QUALITY OF SERVICE BENCHMARKS AND STANDARDS Sec.
54.151. Purpose. 54.152. Defintions. 54.153. Reporting requirements. 54.154. Customer surveys. 54.155. Regulatory performance. § 54.151. Purpose.
This subchapter establishes a means by which the Commission can develop uniform measurement and reporting to assure that the customer services of the EDCs are maintained, at a minimum, at the same level of quality under retail competition. This subchapter sets forth uniform measurements and reporting requirements for monitoring the level of the EDCs' customer service performance. This subchapter also establishes the effective dates of the reporting requirements.
§ 54.152. Definitions.
The following words and terms, when used in this subchapter, have the following meanings, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
BCS--The Bureau of Consumer Services of the Commission.
Busy-out rate--The number of calls to an EDC's call center or business office that received a busy signal divided by the number of calls that were completed.
Call center--A centralized facility established by a utility for the regular transaction of business between customers and supervised utility customer service representatives.
Call abandonment rate--The number of calls to an EDC's call center or business office that were abandoned divided by the total number of calls received at the EDC's telephone call center or business office.
Code--The Public Utility Code, 66 Pa.C.S. §§ 101--3316.
Commission--The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
Customer--A retail electric customer as defined in 2803 of the code (relating to definitions).
EDC--electric distribution company--An electric distribution company as defined in section 2803 of the code.
General survey--A survey of a cross section of the customers of a utility to include an evaluation of overall satisfaction with the EDC, the clarity and accuracy of EDC bills, perceived reliability of service and customer problem perception.
Informal consumer complaint--An appeal by a consumer to the BCS about a utility's proposed resolution of a dispute related to billing, service delivery, repairs and all other issues not related to requests for payment arrangements.
Informally verified infraction--An apparent misapplication of Commission regulations as determined by the BCS through its examination of information obtained as part of its review of informal consumer complaints and payment arrangement requests. The informal verification process implemented by the BCS notifies a utility of the information which forms the basis of an alleged infraction, affords the utility the opportunity to affirm or deny the accuracy of the information and concludes with a BCS determination regarding the alleged infraction. An informally verified infraction is not equivalent to a formal violation under section 3301 of the code (relating to civil penalties for violations) unless otherwise determined through applicable Commission procedures.
Infraction--A misapplication of a Commission regulation, particularly the standards and billing practices for residential service.
Infraction rate--The number of informally verified infractions per 1,000 residential customers.
Justified informal consumer complaint--A complaint where the BCS has determined that an EDC did not follow Commission procedures or regulations.
Justified informal consumer complaint rate--The number of justified informal consumer complaints per 1,000 residential customers.
Justified payment arrangement request--A payment arrangement request where an EDC did not follow Commission negotiation procedures or regulations.
Justified payment arrangement request rate--The number of justified payment arrangement requests per 1,000 residential customers.
Payment arrangement request--A customer request for payment terms to the BCS.
Small commercial--A person, sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, association or other business entity which employs fewer than 250 employes and which receives public utility service under a small commercial, small industrial or small business rate classification. See section 22 of the Small Business Advocate Act (73 P. S. § 399.42).
Transaction survey--A survey targeted toward individuals that have had a recent interaction with an EDC. A transaction includes filing a complaint, inquiring about a bill, having a repair completed, installation of service or an appointment for a special meter reading.
§ 54.153. Reporting requirements.
(a) Unless otherwise specified in this subchapter, each EDC shall file reports biannually with the Commission on or before August 1 and February 1 of each year beginning August 1, 1999. Each August report shall contain data from the first 6 months of the calendar year. Each February report shall contain data from the second 6 months of the year as well as data for the entire preceding calendar year. The report shall be filed with the Secretary of the Commission. Each report shall include the name and telephone number of the person to whom inquiries should be addressed.
(b) Each EDC shall take measures necessary and keep sufficient records to report the following data to the Commission:
(1) Telephone access.
(i) The percent of calls answered at the EDC's call center or business office within 30 seconds with the EDC representative ready to render assistance and to accept information necessary to process the call. An acknowledgment that the customer or applicant is waiting on the line does not constitute an answer.
(ii) The average busy-out rate.
(iii) The call abandonment rate.
(2) Billing.
(i) The average number and percent of residential bills that the EDC failed to render once every billing period to residential ratepayers in accordance with § 56.11 (relating to billing frequency).
(ii) The average number and percent of small commercial bills that the EDC failed to render once every billing period to small commercial ratepayers.
(3) Meter reading.
(i) The number and percent of residential meters for which the company has failed to obtain an actual or ratepayer supplied reading within the past 6 months to verify the accuracy of estimated readings in accordance with § 56.12(4)(ii) (relating to meter reading; estimated billing; ratepayer readings).
(ii) The number and percent of residential meters for which the company has failed to obtain an actual meter reading within the past 12 months to verify the accuracy of the readings, either estimated or ratepayer read in accordance with § 56.12(4)(iii).
(iii) The number and percent of residential remote meters for which it has failed to obtain an actual meter reading under the time frame in § 56.12(5)(ii).
(4) Response to disputes. The actual number of disputes as described in Chapter 56, Subchapter F (relating to disputes; termination disputes; informal and formal complaints) for which the company failed to issue its report to the complaining party within 30 days of the initiation of the dispute under § 56.151(5) (relating to purpose).
§ 54.154. Customer surveys.
(a) General survey. Each EDC shall arrange for an independent third party to submit to the Commission the results of a general telephone survey of a cross-section of all classes of the EDC's customer population.
(1) The purpose of the general survey shall be to evaluate customer perceptions about the accuracy of bills, the clarity of bills and other communications from the EDC, the reliability of the EDCs service, problems with the EDC and overall customer satisfaction.
(2) The survey instrument shall be a uniform questionnaire developed for use by all EDC's.
(3) The survey sample selection procedure shall be based on a uniform procedure applicable to all EDCs.
(4) Using uniform methodology, a single, independent third party shall conduct the survey for all EDCs, analyze each EDC's survey results and report each EDCs survey results to the Commission. Each EDC shall also receive the results obtained from its own customers.
(b) Transaction survey. Each EDC shall arrange for an independent third party to submit to the Commission the results of telephone transaction surveys of customers who have had recent interactions with the EDC.
(1) The purpose of the transaction surveys shall be to assess the customer perception regarding the most recent interaction with the EDC. Survey questions shall measure access to the utility, employe courtesy, employe knowledge, the keeping of scheduled appointments, promptness of response or visit and satisfaction with the outcome of the interaction.
(2) The transaction survey questions shall specifically address the circumstances that generated the most recent transaction. Interaction categories shall include the following: service installation, premise visit by company field personnel for an activity other than service installation, service interruption, billing balance inquiry or dispute, request for discontinuance of service, application for service and other similar interactions.
(3) The survey instrument shall be a uniform questionnaire developed for use by all EDC's.
(4) The survey sample selection procedure shall be based on a uniform procedure applicable to all EDCs.
(5) A single, independent third party shall use a uniform methodology to conduct the survey for all EDCs, analyze each EDCs survey results and report the survey results by EDC to the Commission. Each EDC shall also receive the results obtained from its own customers.
(c) Commission approval. The questionnaires and the survey procedures shall be subject to the approval of the Commission.
(d) Timetable. Survey results shall be reported to the Commission as follows:
(1) General survey results shall be reported annually, on or before April 1 of each year, beginning April 1, 2001.
(2) Transaction survey results shall be submitted biannually, on or before October 1 and April 1 of each year beginning October 1, 2000. Each October report shall contain survey results from the first 6 months of the calendar year. Each April report shall contain results from the second 6 months of the year as well as a 12-month total of survey results.
§ 54.155. Regulatory performance.
(a) The BCS will review and analyze residential informal consumer complaints and payment arrangement requests filed with the Commission and will report the justified consumer complaint rate and the justified payment arrangement request rate to the Commission on an annual basis.
(b) The BCS will report to the Commission the number of informally verified infractions of applicable statutes and regulations relating to the treatment of residential accounts by each EDC. The BCS will calculate and report to the Commission an ''infraction rate'' for each EDC.
[Pa.B. Doc. No. 98-173. Filed for public inspection January 30, 1998, 9:00 a.m.]
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