For years, J.D. Power & Associates has surveyed buyer satisfaction with big electric utilities nationwide, giving the best a year's value of bragging rights.

This year, the firm extensive its analysis to lesser power companies, and an
Atlanta-area electric cooperative aced the test.

Jackson Electric Membership Cooperative, which serves northeastern Atlanta suburbs and exurbs, got the top ranking in the South among mid-size utility companies, J.D. Power announced this week.

And although the company didn't rank results this way, Jackson had the highest pleasure score of all electric companies in the analysis. Its members are in 10 counties, including Gwinnett, Hall, Jackson and Barrow.

Georgia Power itself ranked fifth among huge utilities in the South. Its Southern Co. sibling, Alabama Power, ranked first among that group.

Southern's Gulf Power and Mississippi Power ranked fifth and 21st, respectively, among the 28 surveyed mid-size power companies in the South, the list topped by Jackson EMC. The only other Georgia company on that list, Marietta-based Cobb EMC, ranked 14th.

Jackson EMC's general manager, Randall Pugh, said he hadn't known J.D. Power was surveying mid-size utilities for the first time.
He said he wasn't shocked that it did well. He said the co-op began focusing on customer service in the early 1990s, when many expected retail electric deregulation was imminent.

"We asked ourselves then what we needed to do to make us the electric power provider of choice in northeast Georgia," he said. "We came to the wrapping up that customer service excellence would make us stand out."

"We gave staff ownership of that, and we gave them all the credit for whatever acknowledgment we received."

The cooperative hires consultants to estimate buyer satisfaction and has seen its score climb from 70 percent happiness to more than 90 percent over the years, he said.

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