The E Source Business Customer Satisfaction Study is a pair of online surveys of utilities’ managed and unmanaged business customers, designed to assess their most important needs and how well their energy providers are meeting them. By participating, you’ll get a unique chance to hear voice-of-the-customer feedback and identify where to make improvements to better suit their needs.

Managed business customers are those that have an assigned account representatives as their designated point of contact with the utility. Assigned account representatives help when customers have questions about their account or the utility’s services. They’re also in charge of promoting and maintaining a customer’s relationship with the utility. Managed customers are typically key and large business accounts.

Unmanaged business customers are those that don’t have an assigned account representative and are instead served by business customer representatives, such as contact center agents, not assigned to a specific account. Customers may deal with them over phone, email, chat or at a customer service center. These customers are typically small and midsize business accounts.

What you get

  • Detailed data sets. See your utility’s customer satisfaction scores and key performance indicators. Each participating utility will receive a raw data file that contains respondent-level data for all participating business customers and a banner file that includes respondent-level data and total sample comparison data presented in an easy-to-read tabular format. 
  • An individualized online dashboard. Pending survey response rates, you can access your individual gap and priority analysis and rankings to see how your utility stacks up to other utilities. 
  • Industry reports. We’ll highlight best practices and trends observed in the surveys. Both the assigned managed and unassigned unmanaged reports will provide industry-level analysis and insight on results and key findings. 
  • A consultation with E Source experts (by request). You’ll have the opportunity to review your results with the E Source team and identify key areas to improve. 

Tell us about yourself

Start the process by completing the registration form with the following information. If you are participating in both the managed and the unmanaged business study, you only need to fill out the form once. 

Register to take the survey

Required information

  • Utility name. The name of your utility, as you would like it presented in the survey to your business customers. 
  • Utility ambassador name, title, and email address. E Source will send an initial email to your customers—on behalf of a main contact at your utility—inviting them to participate in the survey. This strategy tells your customers that their input will be taken seriously and that the survey is worth their time. 
  • Project lead name, title, phone, and email address. This is the person we’ll communicate with as the study progresses. 
  • Commodity provided by your utility. Do you provide electricity, natural gas, or both? 
  • Ownership structure of your utility. Are you investor-owned, municipal, cooperative, public power, or Canadian Crown Corporation? 
  • Study participation. Indicate whether you are participating in the managed business customer study, the unmanaged business customer study or both. 
  • Study fielding timeframe. Indicate the timeframe you would like to field your survey(s). We are currently offering three fielding times, starting April 29th, June 3rd, and July 8th.
  • Number of managed business accounts at your utility. Required for Managed Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants only. 
  • Number of managed business accounts at your utility with email addresses. Required for Managed Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants only. 
  • Utility account representatives’ title. Required for Managed Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants. 
  • Number of utility account representatives serving managed business accounts at your utility. Required for Managed Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants only. 
  • Number of unmanaged accounts at your utility. Required for Unmanaged Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants only. 
  • Number of unmanaged accounts at your utility with email addresses. Required for Unmanaged Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants only. 
  • Utility business customer representative title. Required for Unmanaged Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants only. 
  • Number of business customer representatives serving accounts at your utility. Required for Unmanaged Business Customer Satisfaction Study participants only. 

Optional information

  • Account management assessment lead name, title, phone, and email address. This is the person you feel would be best suited to participate in E Source’s Account Management Assessment. The assessment compares utility account management departments and performance, giving you valuable insight into how your organization and the industry at large are serving business customers 

Prepare your sample 

Once the study’s registration form is complete, E Source will reach out via email about sampling and fielding next steps. 

Monitor your study response rate 

During fielding E Source will provide regular updates on the number of completed surveys and, if needed, will work with you to implement strategies for improving response rates. 

Review your results 

  • Data delivery. E Source will securely transmit the raw data and initial banner files containing utility specific information only to participants by June 13 (wave 1) and July 19 (Wave 2). All participants will receive final banner files that include a comparison to the studies’ aggregate data on August 15.
  • Online dashboards (if applicable). Utility-specific and aggregate study data via online dashboards will be available in September 2025. 
  • Data advisory call (by request). Calls to discuss study results with the E Source team can be scheduled starting in October 2025. 
  • Industry reports. Business customer industry reports will be published beginning November 2025. 

Questions?

If you have questions about the E Source Business Customer Satisfaction Study, contact us.

Study results

2024 Small and Midsize Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2024 Large Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2023 Small and Midsize Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2023 Large Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2022 Small and Midsize Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2022 Large Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2021 Small and Midsize Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2021 Large Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2020 Small and Midsize Business Customer Satisfaction Study 2020 Large Business Customer Satisfaction Study

If you’re a subscriber, these links will take you to the study deliverables. If you’re not currently a subscriber, contact us for information on how to become an E Source member.