Electric, Natural Gas and Combination Utilities See Customer Experience Gains Stall as Billing Friction Reemerges
LIVONIA, Mich., April 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After showing early signs of recovery last year, electric, natural gas and combination utilities’ progress in making it easy for their customers to do business with them is beginning to stall. New data from Escalent’s Cogent Syndicated 2026 Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement: Residential™ study show that Customer Effort—a key measure of how easy utilities are to do business with—declined by one point year over year to 722 (on a 1,000-point scale), signaling a meaningful setback in a benchmark that had only recently begun to improve.
The dip reflects renewed strain in the billing and payment experience for customers. In what may signal a broader industry trend, bill-related attributes were the primary drivers of the decline in Customer Effort. Perceptions of how easy the bill is to understand and how reasonable the payment process is both fell significantly year over year. These measures typically move in tandem with bill manageability: as customers feel their bills are less manageable, customers are more likely to view the bills as less transparent and more burdensome to pay—driven in large part by declining affordability.
“To counteract this trend, utilities need to address both the perception and the reality of bill burden—because Customer Effort is being driven as much by affordability pressure as by experience design,” said Suzanne Haggerty, director of Cogent Syndicated research with Escalent’s Energy team, which has extensive energy, utility and brand experience. “Reducing bill confusion through better communication and design as well as reducing stress by giving customers more support and control over their energy use is essential to improving Customer Effort perceptions in an environment where bills are increasingly difficult to manage.”
Despite this dip, a total of 31 utilities stood out as being the “easiest to do business with” among the largest energy utility companies in the US surveyed in the study. While utilities overall saw notable declines in bill understandability and bill-pay effort, both measures improved modestly among the Easiest to Do Business With.
Customers who are struggling to manage their utility bills often look to those bills as a starting point for savings. In doing so, many find not only that savings opportunities are difficult to identify, but also that the bill itself is hard to understand. This challenge is especially pronounced for utilities offering multiple services, varied bill formats and alternative energy options. For these providers, creating clear, easy-to-navigate bills remains a complex but critical task. Among utilities recognized as the Easiest to Do Business With, several leading practices stand out.
National Grid, for example, offers online bill explainers tailored to different customer situations, including standard and budget billing, active payment agreements and customers using third-party energy suppliers. The utility also provides video explanations in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese. Within the same section of its website, customers can access information on energy-saving programs, practical tips, deferred payment options and budget billing plans.
“The moment customers realize their utility bill is about to be a significant financial burden is an opportunity for utilities to step in,” Haggerty added. “Packaging savings opportunities, budget bill programs and payment plans with the bill itself and as part of the bill explanation area can help customers perceive their utility bills as more manageable and can relieve growing dissatisfaction with other parts of the billing process.”
Escalent is pleased to name these 31 energy utilities as our 2026 Easiest to Do Business With.
* Utilities designated as Easiest to Do Business With are selected based on having Customer Effort scores in the top decile of the industry, having the top score within their respective benchmark segment, or being within 20 points of the top benchmark segment score and above the industry average.
The following tables reflect regional peer benchmark Customer Effort scores among the 147 utilities surveyed.
**Indicates combined legacy FPL and FPL NW scores
About the Utility Trusted Brand & Customer Engagement™: Residential Study
Escalent conducted surveys among 61,881 residential electric, natural gas and combination utility customers of the 157 largest US utility companies (based on residential customer counts). The sample design uses a combination of quotas and weighting based on US census data to ensure a demographically balanced sample of each evaluated utility’s customers based on age, gender, income, race and ethnicity. Utilities within the same region and of the same type (e.g., electric-only providers) are given equal weight to balance the influence of each utility’s customers on survey results. Escalent will supply the exact wording of any survey question upon request.
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