Voice of the Customer Research Exposed 4 Critical Performance Gaps
Customer complaints were piling up at a major Texas utility provider. Bills were confusing, rate information wasn’t getting through, and trust was eroding. But leadership knew that gut feelings and assumptions wouldn't solve these problems. They needed real data from real customers.
At Revelare Insights, we help companies turn customer feedback into strategic advantage. Today, we're sharing a case study that demonstrates how systematic Voice of the Customer research transformed a struggling utility provider into a customer satisfaction leader.
When Assumptions Meet Reality
This municipal utility provider served hundreds of thousands of residential customers across Texas. On paper, everything looked fine. They offered competitive rates, maintained reliable service, and had standard customer service operations. But satisfaction scores were stagnating, and customer complaints kept increasing.
The leadership team faced a classic business challenge. They knew something was wrong, but they didn’t know exactly what or how to fix it. Sound familiar?
"We were making decisions based on what we thought customers wanted," explained a member of the utility provider’s leadership team. "But we realized we needed to actually ask them."
This is where Voice of the Customer research became crucial. How do you understand what hundreds of thousands of customers really think about your service?
Deep Customer Intelligence Through Research
To understand where the utility provider was missing the mark, we conducted a Voice of the Customer (VoC) study using the gap analysis methodology. This type of approach goes beyond simple satisfaction surveys and measures the important difference between what customers expect and what they think they're getting.
Our research methodology included:
132 telephone interviews with residential customers representative of the utility provider’s diverse service area
10-point scale ratings measuring both customer importance and actual performance across 12 service dimensions
Quarterly tracking to monitor improvements over time
Statistical analysis to identify the most critical performance gaps
The participant profile was strong in terms of representation:
Customers from all ZIP codes and council districts in the service area
Mix of income levels from $75,000 and below to over $200,000
49% male, 51% female participants
64% under 45 years of age
Representative ethnic diversity matching the service area
Each interview lasted almost 17 minutes and covered the full spectrum of utility provider services, from billing and rates to outages and customer service.
Uncovering the Real Problems
Our research revealed that the utility provider's customer experience wasn't just disappointing. It was broken in four specific ways.
The gap analysis exposed significant performance gaps (greater than 25 percentage points) in critical areas that leadership had never identified. These weren't minor issues; they were relationship-damaging blind spots:
Keeping Energy Prices Down (-44% gap)
Customers rated this 95% in importance but gave the utility provider only a 51% in performance. Here's the kicker: 84% of customers didn't even know they were paying some of the lowest rates in the state.
Treating Customers Fairly (-25% gap)
With 95% in importance but only 70% in performance, customers felt the utility provider wasn't working in their best interests.
Emergency Communication (-24% gap)
Despite 96% in importance ratings, performance scored just 71%. When the lights went out, customers felt left in the dark about what was happening.
Electricity Rate Information (-14% gap)
Customers rated this 86% in importance but gave only 72% in performance. They simply couldn't understand their bills or rate structures.
These numbers were a wake-up call for leadership. The utility provider wasn't just missing customer expectations. They were missing them by margins that were actively damaging relationships.
But here's what made this discovery even more meaningful. Customers valued what the utility provider did well, they just didn't know about it.
What Actually Drives Customer Value
When we asked customers who rated the utility provider highly what drove their positive perception, three themes emerged consistently: