Jul. 17--AEP-PSO's score for satisfying its residential customers fell more this year than any other utility listed nationwide, according to a J.D. Power and Associates study released Thursday.

The Tulsa area's main electricity provider scored 592 points of a possible 1,000 on key issues such as pricing, reliability, customer service and corporate citizenship. The total was 47 points lower than last year's overall rating, the biggest decline among 121 utilities ranked by J.D. Power.

"They had a tough cycle here," said Jeff Conklin, a senior director with J.D. Power. "It was a very sharp drop-off in overall satisfaction compared to one year ago."

American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma finished 25th of 27 utilities ranked among the survey's southern midsize segment. The 592 total was 32 points below the 624 segment average.

A company spokesman, Stan Whiteford, said AEP-PSO does not subscribe to the J.D. Power service, but instead uses Market Strategies Inc. That group's most recent quarterly survey rated AEP-PSO's customer satisfaction at a healthy 85 percent, he noted.

Whiteford said the gap in survey results is puzzling.

"That's unexplainable from our standpoint," he said. "A portion of that is we need to do a better job of telling our story."

Conklin said anger about pricing hit the utility particularly hard.

AEP-PSO raised its base rate by $81.4 million a year earlier this year and increased its fuel-cost portion of bills by an average

of $17.50 a month when natural gas prices hit historic highs last summer.

But not even lowering the fuel-cost factor five times in the past nine months has gained much leverage with customers, if the J.D. Powers study is any indication.

"Consumers like it best when they don't have to think about it," Conklin said. "When things get to be too frequent, consumers expect you to have already planned all this out."

AEP-PSO raised the fuel-cost portion in June 2008. The first reduction of 18 percent occurred because the utility hit an automatic trigger by over-collection of $50 million, according to reports.

The four subsequent fuel-cost reductions may have made utility bills even lower than they were before the base rate increase, but maybe the good news reminds consumers too much of the previous bad news, Conklin said.

Frustration over lengthy outages during the December 2007 ice storm also may have weighed heavily on their minds, he added.

"It's an 18-month story," Conklin said. "It's wearing down on consumers there."

Last year, AEP-PSO ranked 13th in its regional segment.

A South Carolina power provider, Santee Cooper, topped this year's list of southern mid-size utilities, and Memphis Light, Gas & Water finished last.

Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. scored 649 points, placing it sixth among the southern large utilities.

Whiteford pointed out that AEP-PSO's corporate policy is not to engage in paid advertising, which could publicize the utility's community generosity with River Parks projects and other events. The company gets the word out through media stories, which typically have a one-day cycle.

"It creates a challenge for us," he said, noting that AEP-PSO does not advertise because it is an unrecoverable expense. "It's just a budget question for us."

J.D. Power's 2009 study was fielded from July 2008 to May 2009, according to the report.

AEP-PSO serves about 525,000 customers statewide. AEP, which is based in Columbus, Ohio, acquired PSO in 2000.

Rod Walton 581-8457 rod.walton@tulsaworld.com

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