CL&P continues their downward spiral of self destruction. It’s one thing to have nature deal an unexpected blow, it’s another to have a lack of attention to maintenance issues make the impact worse than it should have been.

As Connecticut residents continue to lose confidence in their electric utility monopoly, the company’s messaging isn’t helping restore that trust.  Here’s what CL&P needs to do right now:

Apologize and admit fault
CL&P’s COO Jeff Butler was asked point blank this morning by a reporter if he’d be issuing an apology on behalf of the company. His answer was to stick to his company’s line of acknowledging frustration but not admitting fault. He even took it a step further and patted himself on the back for doing a good job. This is an old school technique for a time when information was not as readily available or transmittable as it is today.

It didn’t take long for the media to discover that CL&P short paid or outright delayed payment to out-of-state crews that helped after Tropical Storm Irene. Maintenance shortfalls, understaffed line crews, and other pre-storm preparedness deficiencies also started coming to light.

Consumers have the tools to be savvier and as such our “BS detectors” have no tolerance for superlatives that even Baghdad Bob wouldn’t make. Butler would do well to simply acknowledge the company has screwed up and will be working to make things right for their customers. They can start by saying the company will absorb the repair costs and not be asking rate payers to cover them. As I wrote yesterday, they were very quick to reassure shareholders after Irene that repair costs would not eat into profits.

Stand and Answer Questions from the Media, and Later the Public
Jeff Butler’s body language says quite a bit. While he’s understandably under a lot of pressure, he’s not helping his cause by racing for the door as he did at this morning’s press conference. Butler should give enough time so that every member of the press at the briefings has an opportunity to ask him questions.

When the lights do come back on, CL&P has an obligation to appear before customers to explain what happened and what they will do to improve. That should have happened after Irene and didn’t. The company decided to instead meet with towns through regional planning agencies. They would not provide me with the dates of those meetings when I requested them.

Stop Using Social Media as a Propaganda Tool
Nothing is more insulting to families sitting in cold, dark houses than to see Tweets and YouTube videos of corporate spin. CL&P proudly touted two videos yesterday of storm damage - like somehow that will make people feel better about their lack of response.

I spoke of this before, and I think it’s worth repeating: social media does not belong solely in the hands of PR officials. Customer service should be there to answer customer questions and try to work out their individual issues.

Stop Relying on Municipalities for Customer Service Communication
In this age of direct communication, CL&P continues to cling to the notion that somehow municipalities and local property tax payers should be the ones responsible for communicating with customers. It backs up my belief that the company is not customer focused, but rather sees themselves as a customer of regulators and shareholders.

Yesterday Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra gave exactly the kind of update that CL&P should be doing:

Why rely on elected officials to do this? Why not have your own people communicate with customers? The answer is simple: Customers are not the company's first priority.

Conclusion: It needs to be about customers!
Again all of this comes back to putting customers first. Large corporations in competitive markets are starting to realize that consumers are getting far less complacent. Just look at Bank of America’s decision to reverse some of their ATM charges this week. CL&P has not learned that lesson mainly because up until this year they didn’t have to.

My only hope is that people angry now stay angry. I felt like a lone voice as I fired off my rants in August, especially after lights came back on and life got back to normal. The company is counting on this happening again, and it simply can’t be allowed to happen. Our voices need to remain loud to be heard.

Following Tropical Storm Irene, hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents were without power for over a week. I was one of the early voices criticizing the company's response, leading to an article that ran in most of the Journal Register Company's Connecticut newspapers.

My argument was that the company wasn't customer focused. They communicated completely through the mass media in very controlled situations, not even giving their customer service reps useful information to pass along on the phone. CL&P was woefully behind in operating a 21st century communication operation.

They did, however, make sure to soothe investors as revealed in a September 8, 2011 article that ran in the Wall Street Journal:

A top executive of Northeast Utilities assured investor analysts Thursday that the company will not turn to the bottom line to pay $100 million in costs related to restoring power after the remnants of Hurricane Irene hit New England, but has not determined exactly how it will eventually pay the tab.

Chief Financial Officer David McHale said the Aug. 28 storm was the costliest ever for the Hartford-based utility, with about 800,000 customers losing power at the peak of the storm.

"Now the focus will be on cost recovery for sure," he said. "We haven't gotten down to exactly how it is we're going to proceed with this."

Separate storm recovery applications or a rate case could be filed with regulators in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, he said. Right now, Northeast Utilities will finance the costs through its credit line and seek somehow to recover the costs in the future, he said.

"You will not see us sort of charge off these amounts," McHale said.

People's attention went elsewhere after the lights came back on. CL&P took advantage of this shift in attention, pointing to favorable results on a Quinnipiac University poll (most likely due to the performance of line crews, not their management). They did participate in a fluff legislative hearing where they were but one small part of a less than comprehensive review of stakeholder performance during the storm. In fact most legislators didn't even have a chance to ask questions of the utilities.

Then the winter storm hit. And once again hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents lost power for what will likely be more than a week. Crews were nowhere to be found for days as residents shivered in unheated homes and people died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  It was learned this week that many of those the company hired to complete the post-Irene repairs weren't paid, with some checks not being cut until yesterday - over 60 days after the fact. Scorned contractors went elsewhere with their trucks when the snowstorm hit.

How can such a big company be so incompetent? It's because as a regulated monopoly they don't have to focus on their customers. Their monopoly is essentially guaranteed a profit, and as the only game in town they really only need to keep their regulators and shareholders happy. Regulators too closely tied to the industry looked the other way as line crews were cut significantly, and shareholders welcomed the profit margins that came from a growing customer base. It also led to CL&P running to analysts assuring them that ratepayers would pick up the tab for repairs - the result of the company's decades-long negligence in maintaining its infrastructure.

Connecticut Light and Power has failed the people of Connecticut.  We should have seen the warning signs when they stopped caring about us.