Customer Experience

Why It Matters

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Our company is built on a history of delivering clean, safe and reliable water with an exceptional customer experience. As a water provider, we know that our service plays a key role in the daily lives of our customers and is essential to a safe, healthy and sustainable life. Our customers are the central tenet of our business, and we focus on providing an excellent experience through simplified and dependable service. This includes clear and easily understandable bills and information, quickly handling customer inquiries and service requests and communicating effectively with our customers during service disruptions or emergencies.  

Our Approach

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To inspire progress and encourage continued industry leadership, we implement annual goals to deliver a top-rated customer experience compared to our water and wastewater industry peers. We also leverage technology and innovation that allows us to quickly receive, respond to and implement ongoing feedback. Our customers’ needs are always evolving, and we always look for opportunities to exceed their expectations. We offer our customers multiple communication channels, including direct mail, online, phone and in-person, so that they may communicate, engage and transact with us in a manner that is most convenient for them. 

OUR Performance

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To guide our strong customer experience strategy, we set and evaluate customer satisfaction goals each year and disclose our performance in our Annual Report and other reporting. We also tie 15% of our incentive compensation to our performance in customer experience.

Our current target includes achieving “first quartile” in overall satisfaction, for each utility subsidiary within its geographic region, as measured by the J.D. Power U.S. Water Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study. The study measures the satisfaction of residential water customers of the 90 largest water utilities in the U.S. and considers six factors to score companies on a 1,000-point scale: quality and reliability, price, conservation, billing and payment, communications and customer service. In 2020, American Water subsidiaries claimed the top three spots in the Midwest—Large category for 2020 customer satisfaction. 

• 1st Place—Illinois American Water (Score: 764)—also the first-place winner in 2016
• 2nd Place—Missouri American Water (Score: 757)—also the second-place winner in 2019
• 3rd Place—Indiana American Water (Score: 746)—also the first-place winner in 2019