Utilities With Antiquated Digital Tools Are Finding It Ha…

Contributed by Cory Maxwell | Digital Experience Consultant, Digital Solutions at JD Power

The nation’s electric, gas, and water utilities are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In 2025, the total average monthly spend on residential electric, gas, and water utility bills was $412, up 7% from 2024. Overall, 44 states and the District of Columbia saw an increase in revenue per kilowatt-hour (kWh) compared to last year. As rates put customers on edge, volatile weather throughout the country is wreaking havoc on reliability. The combination has conspired to form the perfect storm. High rates create a certain customer expectation. Spotty reliability sparks demand and urgency. And it’s creating the ultimate stress test for utilities’ digital channels.

For many utilities, increasingly sophisticated mobile apps and websites have been a bright spot, helping them mitigate some of the strain they’ve been feeling with their customers. But even as many utilities have reaped huge benefits by leveraging digital, a chasm exists between utilities delivering truly world-class digital experiences and those still operating in the dark ages.  

At the center of this dynamic? Antiquated digital infrastructure, poor accessibility, and a misunderstanding about exactly what customers value in their relationship with their utility.

Stuck in the Past

According to the JD Power U.S. Utility Digital Experience Study, which is based on evaluations from 13,514 customers of the 46 largest electric, natural gas, and water utilities in the United States that serve 1,000,000 or more residential customers, the industry average for overall satisfaction increased by five points this year, rising from 611 to 616 (on a 1,000-point scale).

While that trend is certainly a positive development, digital tools for utilities remain severely underdeveloped when compared to other industries. For example, the average satisfaction score for advised wealth management apps and websites is 734. Similarly, we see average scores of 699 for apps and websites in the property and casualty insurance industry and 690 for retirement plan apps and websites.

What’s more, there is a growing gap between the top-performing utilities and those at the bottom of the rankings. Specifically, there is a 100-point difference between the top-performing (660) and the worst-performing utility (560) in the study. More digitally mature industries usually see a gap roughly half this size.

It begs the question: With that much of a spread, just how behind the times are some of these utilities? A deeper dive reveals a grim picture for some.

An App for Everything

Arguably, the most remarkable takeaway from this study is the fact that more than one-in-four (28%) of the largest utilities in the country do not have a mobile app. That’s a stunning figure in the era of smartphone ubiquity. Imagine, for example, 28% of customers of the largest banks in the country not having access to their accounts on their smartphones. It would be unheard of.

So why the hesitation to develop an app nearly two decades after we began to have an “app for everything”? By nature, customer relationships with their utilities are largely transactional. Most customers aren’t engaging with their utilities more than they must, which can make utilities hesitant to invest in the technology.  A slick app might seem a luxury or an unnecessary expenditure, but that’s a short-sighted approach, particularly when one considers just how significantly apps can move the needle on customer satisfaction.

Apps Over Desktops

The JD Power study finds that even the lowest-scoring mobile apps (607) perform better than the average desktop (595) or mobile web experience (588) when customers are viewing or reporting an outage. Many of these sites look they were designed for desktop first, leaving a clunky mobile website at best. There is also a barrier to accessing a desktop site: access to power. After all, consider why a customer would contact a utility, such as to report or view an outage. A mobile phone is ly going to be functional in the aftermath of a storm or a power shutoff, while desktop computers are not.

Customers report the top reason they went to their utility provider’s website/app in the last 12 months was to make a payment, which aligns well with a mobile phone setting. Mobile phones tend to act as a central hub. Customers check their banking app for their account balance, then pay their utility bill. It makes the omission of a mobile app by some utilities even more egregious. Surprisingly, reporting a service problem was 7th on the list, and viewing rebates was 11^th.

Navigation Boosts Scores

Customers’ understanding of their bills and digital tool navigation has the largest impact on their overall satisfaction. These two factors increase customer satisfaction by 63 and over 50 points, respectively. This reveals a clear path for utilities to make major inroads on customer satisfaction. Currently, fewer than 60% of utility customers report that it’s very easy to find information or features/tools throughout the site.

Just what are they looking to find? Across all digital channels, the areas that are consistently most difficult for utility customers to navigate are pricing plans, rebate information, and current outage information.

Removing the Guesswork

Even as utilities make progress on their digital tools, they need to know exactly what customers value. Unless a utility is truly engaged with its customers and understands how they use digital tools, it is shooting in the dark about what moves the needle.

After years of technological neglect, the slow improvement in customer satisfaction with digital channels suggests that top-performing utilities are finally recognizing how vital these tools are for building trust with their customers. While the customer-utility relationship can often feel an arranged marriage, utilities can’t phone it in, or they open themselves up to huge reputational harm. To truly thrive, they’ll need to be diligent about building goodwill with their customers, and that starts with meeting them where they are on digital channels.

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About the Author

Cory Maxwell is a digital experience consultant on the digital solutions team at JD Power.