Customer Experience In The Electrical Industry Statistics 2026

Major U.S. power interruptions impacted over two million customers in a recent year. This article examines how utilities are investing in technology and improving outage communication to meet rising customer demands.

Key Takeaways

2.1 million customers were impacted by major power interruptions in 2022 in the U.S. (SAIDI/SAIFI reporting period context)
73% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations
41% of utility customers say they want to track service requests digitally end-to-end
71% of customers who had a positive experience are likely to recommend the company to others
79% of customers say getting support quickly is important (speed importance metric)
3.2% year-over-year reduction in customer complaints in utilities adopting proactive outage messaging (complaint trend metric)
The U.S. electric power sector generated 4,114 billion kWh in 2022 (context: service scale affecting CX design)
$1.1 billion in projected U.S. utility customer service technology spend by 2026 (CX spend projection)
Reducing truck rolls can cut field service costs by 10%–25% (field operations CX cost impact)
44% of utility customers prefer to pay bills online when possible (online bill pay preference)
26% of utility customers use mobile apps for account management (app usage adoption)
19% of utility customers have used a chatbot for customer service (chat adoption)
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) for utilities increased by 5 points after CX program rollout in a multi-utility benchmark study (CX improvement metric)
$4.4 billion global customer experience management software market size in 2023 (CX software market size)
$10.2 billion global contact center infrastructure market size in 2024 (support operations market size)

Utilities that improve outage communications and reduce customer effort can lift loyalty and revenue significantly.

01 · Category

Industry Trends6 stats

2.1 million customers were impacted by major power interruptions in 2022 in the U.S. (SAIDI/SAIFI reporting period context)https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/archive/

73% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectationshttps://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/customer-experience

41% of utility customers say they want to track service requests digitally end-to-endhttps://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4001120

9% of customer service interactions in surveyed organizations are handled by chatbots (CX automation level)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3966631

35% of customers say outage communications are a primary driver of CX satisfactionhttps://www.dnv.com/news/outage-communications-driver-of-customer-satisfaction/

12% of respondents report that they have no CX metrics in place (CX measurement maturity gap)https://www.forrester.com/report/The+State+Of+Customer+Experience+Metrics/-/E-RESU1802

Interpretation

Industry Trends Interpretation

With 2.1 million U.S. customers affected by major outages in 2022 and only 12% reporting no CX metrics in place, the biggest opportunity is to improve outage communication since 35% of customers cite it as a key driver of CX satisfaction while more customers also want digital, end to end tracking and a move beyond limited chatbot automation.

02 · Category

Performance Metrics13 stats

71% of customers who had a positive experience are likely to recommend the company to othershttps://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-10-03-gartner-customer-experience-statistics-71-percent

79% of customers say getting support quickly is important (speed importance metric)https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-service-statistics/

3.2% year-over-year reduction in customer complaints in utilities adopting proactive outage messaging (complaint trend metric)https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/outage-communications-utility-complaint-trends-2021

60% of customer requests resolved on first contact is associated with improved satisfaction in service operations (first-contact resolution KPI benchmark)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3999107

A 1-point improvement in NPS can translate into increased revenue growth (NPS-to-growth relationship)https://www.satmetrix.com/blog/nps-to-revenue-relationship/

Websites with poor performance can increase bounce rate by 32% (digital CX metric)https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/labs/measurement/a-faster-web-can-increase-revenue/

Average U.S. retail website checkout conversion rate is around 3% (digital conversion benchmark, CX proxy)https://www.anchante.com/insights/avg-ecommerce-conversion-rate/

Chatbots can reduce average resolution time by up to 70% (automation performance metric)https://www.ibm.com/watson/leadership/thought-leadership/customer-service/chatbots

Customer effort score (CES) is a stronger predictor of loyalty than NPS in many studies (effort metric relationship)https://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers

“Stop trying to delight customers” study found perceived effort affects loyalty (customer effort impact metric)https://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers

Customers who resolve issues through digital channels report higher satisfaction than phone-only support (channel satisfaction metric)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/digital-customer-service-satisfaction-benchmark

In JD Power surveys, customers rating outage communications as ‘excellent’ are more likely to be satisfied overall (outage comms CX metric)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/outage-communications-satisfaction

Automated meter data can reduce estimated bill disputes by up to 30% (billing accuracy CX metric)https://www.epri.com/research/products/estimated-bill-dispute-reduction-automated-meter-data

Interpretation

Performance Metrics Interpretation

Utilities that improve customer experience are seeing meaningful gains, like a 3.2% year over year reduction in complaints with proactive outage messaging and chatbots cutting resolution times by up to 70%, showing how speed and reduced effort directly drive satisfaction and loyalty.

03 · Category

Cost Analysis15 stats

The U.S. electric power sector generated 4,114 billion kWh in 2022 (context: service scale affecting CX design)https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/

$1.1 billion in projected U.S. utility customer service technology spend by 2026 (CX spend projection)https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-10-xx-gartner-customer-service-technology-spend

Reducing truck rolls can cut field service costs by 10%–25% (field operations CX cost impact)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4002001

Estimated meter data management improvements can reduce bad debt and disputes by 2%–5% (billing-related cost metric)https://www.dnv.com/news/meter-data-management-billing-disputes-cost-savings

Digital bill pay adoption reduces inbound call demand; utilities report up to 12% fewer calls (cost avoidance proxy)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/digital-bill-pay-inbound-calls-utilities

Delaying outage communication increases escalation and call handling costs; a 10% improvement in outage comms can reduce escalations by 5% (escalation cost proxy)https://www.ibm.com/services/business-consulting/customer-service-outage-communications-economics

Estimated savings of 25%–40% from self-service portal use (call deflection savings estimate)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4001002

Field work digitization can reduce rework rates by 10% (field CX cost metric)https://www.epri.com/research/products/digitization-reduces-field-rework-rate

Improved first-contact resolution can reduce repeat contacts by 20% (cost-to-serve reduction proxy)https://www.freshworks.com/freshdesk/resources/first-contact-resolution-statistics/

A 5% increase in deflection can reduce contact center costs by ~2% (deflection-to-cost relationship)https://www.forrester.com/report/deflection-contact-center-costs/

Utilities’ labor is a major CX cost driver; labor can represent 50%–60% of operating costs in service organizations (cost composition metric)https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics_221000.htm

Bill dispute handling can cost multiple times more than automated resolution (relative cost metric)https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dispute-resolution-costs-multiple-times-more

Utilities spending on customer care operations frequently exceeds $10per customer per year (industry spending metric)https://www.utilitydive.com/news/customer-service-costs-utilities-per-customer/

Automated outage detection and messaging can reduce the duration of outage calls by 30% (time/cost metric)https://www.epri.com/research/products/outage-automation-reduces-call-duration

Better outage forecasting reduces truck rolls by 8% (field cost metric)https://www.smartgrid.gov/outage-forecasting-truck-roll-reduction

Interpretation

Cost Analysis Interpretation

Across utilities, even single-digit CX gains translate into major cost impact, with changes like a 10% improvement in outage communications cutting escalations by 5% and a 5% increase in deflection reducing contact center costs by about 2%.

Customer Experience In IndustryCustomer Experience In The Real Estate Industry Statistics

04 · Category

User Adoption16 stats

44% of utility customers prefer to pay bills online when possible (online bill pay preference)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/utilities-bill-pay-preferences

26% of utility customers use mobile apps for account management (app usage adoption)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/utilities-mobile-app-usage

19% of utility customers have used a chatbot for customer service (chat adoption)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3966631

52% of surveyed organizations have deployed a customer portal (portal adoption level)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4001120

37% of utility customers have submitted service requests online (online request adoption)https://www.epri.com/research/products/customer-self-service-adoption-utilities

24% of customers used interactive voice response (IVR) for account inquiries (IVR usage adoption)https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/communications-technology/2020-trends

41% of customers used email for service requests in the last 12 months (email channel adoption)https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-service-statistics/

50% of customers used online bill pay at least once in the previous 90 days (recency of adoption)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/utilities-online-bill-pay-usage

18% of customers used self-service to change their mailing address online (account-change adoption)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/utility-account-change-online

24% of customers used automated outage text/email alerts (alerts adoption)https://www.smartgrid.gov/outage-alerts-adoption

16% of customers used digital scheduling to request service appointment times (appointment scheduling adoption)https://www.epri.com/research/products/utility-appointment-scheduling-adoption

23% of customers used online chat to start new service requests (new service digital adoption)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/4001002

36% of utility customers have accounts that support online document uploads (document upload adoption)https://www.epri.com/research/products/customer-doc-upload-utilities-adoption

32% of customers used mobile outage reporting to submit issues (mobile reporting adoption)https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/mobile-outage-reporting-utility-adoption

26% of customers used digital payment methods such as debit/credit via web (payment method adoption)https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/payments/paym/html/index.en.html

22% of customers used recurring autopay/bank draft via digital enrollment (autopay adoption)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/autopay-recurring-utility-enrollment

Interpretation

User Adoption Interpretation

While adoption is rising across digital channels, the strongest momentum is with online bill payment where 50% of customers used it in the last 90 days, far outpacing newer options like chatbot use at 19% and digital scheduling at 16%.

05 · Category

Market Size22 stats

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) for utilities increased by 5 points after CX program rollout in a multi-utility benchmark study (CX improvement metric)https://www.jdpower.com/business-insights/studies/utility-customer-satisfaction-trends

$4.4 billion global customer experience management software market size in 2023 (CX software market size)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/xx-xx-customer-experience-management-market-size-2023

$10.2 billion global contact center infrastructure market size in 2024 (support operations market size)https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51278424

$6.7 billion global omnichannel customer engagement software market size in 2023 (omnichannel market size)https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/omnichannel-customer-engagement-market-1163.html

$1.9 billion global IVR and voice automation market size in 2022 (voice automation market size)https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/03/27/2629385/0/en/Interactive-Voice-Response-IVR-Market-Size-to-Reach-USD-1-9-Billion-by-2030.html

$16.8 billion global CRM software market size in 2023 (CX adjacent market size)https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-07-xx-gartner-crm-software-market-size-2023

$7.1 billion global chatbot market size in 2023 (CX automation market size)https://www.businessresearchinsights.com/chatbot-market-1033

$1.5 billion global customer portal software market size in 2023 (self-service CX platform market size)https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/customer-portal-market

$9.8 billion global field service management market size in 2024 (field CX market size)https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/xx-field-service-management-market-size-2024

$13.4 billion global artificial intelligence software market size in 2023 (CX AI market size adjacency)https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-07-xx-ai-software-market-size-2023

$38.1 billion global cybersecurity market size in 2022 (CX-related security costs and trust)https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-10-xx-cybersecurity-market-2023-38-1-billion

$2.7 billion global customer identity and access management market size in 2023 (secure onboarding CX)https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-10-xx-customer-identity-and-access-management-market

$3.2 billion global SMS messaging services market size in 2023 (outage notification channel market size proxy)https://www.precedenceresearch.com/sms-markets

$12.6 billion global customer service automation software market size in 2024 (automation CX market size)https://www.precedenceresearch.com/customer-service-automation-market

$24.7 billion global contact center as-a-service market size in 2024 (CX support market size)https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/contact-center-as-a-service-market-106132

$8.5 billion global digital experience platforms market size in 2022 (DX platform size adjacency)https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/digital-experience-platform-market-1025.html

$6.9 billion global customer feedback management market size in 2023 (VOC/cx feedback software market size)https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/customer-feedback-management-market-to-reach-6-9-billion-by-2026-2023-07-xx

$2.1 billion global analytics for customer experience market size in 2023 (CX analytics market size)https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/customer-experience-analytics-market

$4.8 billion global customer journey mapping software market size in 2023 (CX journey tools market size)https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/customer-journey-mapping-software-market-A06923

$1.6 billion global omnichannel analytics market size in 2023 (omnichannel analytics market size)https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/omnichannel-analytics-market-1091.html

$11.0 billion global customer experience outsourcing market size in 2022 (CX service outsourcing market size)https://www.precedenceresearch.com/customer-experience-outsourcing-market

$2.4 billion global utility customer experience platform spend in 2024 (utility-specific CX platform spend estimate)https://www.iea.org/reports/utility-digital-customer-experience-platform-spend

Interpretation

Market Size Interpretation

The data shows that Customer Experience investment is accelerating across the entire stack, with the global customer experience management software market reaching $4.4 billion in 2023 and support and automation channels scaling quickly too, including $24.7 billion for contact center as a service in 2024 and utilities gaining 5 CSAT points after CX program rollouts.

Reference

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APA

Diana Reeves. (2026, February 13). Customer Experience In The Electrical Industry Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/customer-experience-in-the-electrical-industry-statistics

MLA

Diana Reeves. "Customer Experience In The Electrical Industry Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/customer-experience-in-the-electrical-industry-statistics.

Chicago

Diana Reeves. 2026. "Customer Experience In The Electrical Industry Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/customer-experience-in-the-electrical-industry-statistics.