Know Thyself

I noticed years ago that companies sometimes treat the weaknesses of their products as strengths in marketing.  At the time, a shampoo that was difficult to get suds from was being advertised as yielding mountains of suds while another shampoo that produced mountains of suds was advertised as effective against dandruff, a claim I found overstated as I brushed flakes off my shoulders.

Today I got a survey call at work from Duke Energy.  The interviewer wanted to know how well they were doing at keeping the electricity on, notifying us of outages, communicating hints and tips for saving energy, keeping rates down, etc.

As I stumbled through the questions that seemed to go on and on, I realized that I have no expectations of Duke.  They provide electricity with impressive up-time and bill us for it.  We pay the bill.  That's it.  When the lights do go out, we wait for them to come back on.  I don't remember ever hearing more than rumors about how long the power would be out during the several local disasters they have had over the past few years -- 36 hours or so for one outage.  Several of the questions were about the quality of such communications and I didn't know how to rate NO communication at all.  Is that a 1 on the 1 to 10 scale?  Is there supposed to be communication?  Have I missed figuring out how to tap into that communication?

Meanwhile, where I live (as opposed to my workplace) we get our power from an REMC.  R for Rural.  REMCs are the Rodney Dangerfields of the power world.  They don't get no respect.  Lights flickering in a breeze, out for the count at the slightest provocation, much higher cost than the city folk pay.

And yet ... all the things Duke wanted me to rate them on that they don't do at all, REMC does well.  They send out a monthly newsletter with both statewide and local updates on what's happening in the world of electricity, along with recipes, tips for using less electricity, and human-interest stories.  The rates are comparable to Duke's.  When I call to report a power outage, knowing that it may not be widespread enough for immediate notice on their end, they offer to call me when it is supposed to be restored.  (And if I don't answer they leave a message on my electricity-powered answering machine telling me the electricity is back on, which tickles my funny-bone when I hear it.)  They send out crews regularly to trim back the limbs that would otherwise cause flickering during wind storms (and took down a huge red oak tree for us once that was dead and threatening their lines if it came down -- at no charge).  We have no complaints about the up-time we get from REMC and, in fact, have had much less total downtime than Duke customers in recent times.  And REMC talks to us through that monthly publication.  All the things that the mighty Duke corporation was asking about for which I had no answers, I could have provided good positive feedback for my lowly REMC.  (And, yes, it's my REMC.  It's a Member-owned Cooperative and I am one of the owners.)

Just kind of funny.  I never even thought about expecting Duke Energy to provide the level of friendly hometown service we get from REMC.  Now that my eyes are opened ... I'll just be more grateful that I have REMC at home and Duke at work.  Is Duke really thinking about communicating with their customers in friendly, helpful ways?  They certainly have a long hill to climb toward that goal!