The "E SOURCE 2009 Review of North American Electric and Gas Company Web Sites" assessed the web sites of 100 U.S. and Canadian utilities. Between December 2008 and May 2009, a team of residential customers accessed and used the top 31 web and mobile features (both content information and self-service tasks) identified by a 2008 E SOURCE market research study as the features residential customers most want to see on their utility's web site. Testing the utility web sites on mobile devices was a new element of this year's study. The reviews were conducted from the perspective of general Internet use, so the sites were rated against the best in class across all web sites, not just utility web sites.

This new study--the fifth E SOURCE web site review--is the largest, most detailed benchmark of electric and gas web sites available. E SOURCE found that both utility customer expectations and utility web sites have changed significantly since earlier reviews. Florence Connally, a research manager at E SOURCE, said, "Utilities are taking note that the web site is an important customer service channel and have taken strides to make them customer friendly. This year, utilities that offer more of the features residential customers want had more user-friendly web sites. In previous studies, we found outliers that focused more on customer experience and not on functionality and vice versa. That is no longer the case."

Overall, E SOURCE found that utility web sites are catching up with customer expectations, as demonstrated by the fact that utilities now offer 77 percent of the features that customers want. Stephanie Cary, a senior research associate at E SOURCE, explained, "Electric and gas companies can never stand still. Just when they refine their web site offerings to match consumer expectations, new twists come along, such as our finding that consumers now expect to navigate the utility site through Google sitelinks."

Eastern U.S. PPL Electric is the top ranked utility in the eastern region and was the only utility from this region to rank in the top quartile. Pepco and Connecticut Light & Power earned second and third respectively.

Midwestern U.S. Wisconsin Public Service captured the top rank in the midwestern region. Alliant Energy and We Energies rounded out the top three.

Southern U.S. South Carolina Electric and Gas ranks highest in the southern region. Dominion and Progress Energy earned the next two highest scores.

Western U.S. Avista Utilities earned the top rank in the western region.