CVPS Reports Solid Service Quality Performance.

RUTLAND, Vt. -- Central Vermont Public Service (NYSE:CV) met all of its service quality standards for 2006, the company reported today, besting some by well over 50 percent.

"Our employees have stretched and innovated to continually improve service quality, from meter reading to customer service to reliability of our system," President Bob Young said. "Their hard work has dramatically improved our overall service quality and customer satisfaction."

CVPS, Vermont's largest utility with 157,000 customers, has 17 SERVE standards, which stands for Serving Everyone with Reliability, Value and Excellence. The company measures and reports to state regulators on everything from how quickly customer care representatives answer phones to bill accuracy, customer service, outage numbers and duration, and safety. All Vermont utilities have specific service quality standards and must report the results regularly to state officials. Penalties can be imposed for failure to meet the standards.

"This is the second straight year we've met all 17 standards, a record we are very proud of, particularly given the series of significant weather events we faced in 2006," Young said. "That said, employees continue to look for ways to improve our service levels and provide even better customer care, in the field and in the Customer Information Center."

In the Customer Information Center, employees answered 87.1 percent of calls within 20 seconds, beating the standard of 75 percent. There wasn't a single call to the company blocked.

"Our customer care staff have really taken customers' views to heart, and are working hard to meet their expectations," Young said. "That's evident in the customer satisfaction numbers, which show 92 percent of customers were satisfied following contact with the company, and the complaint rate, which was just 0.01 percent."

Meter readers read 98 percent of meters as scheduled in 2006, though the standard is just 90 percent, while less than 0.085 percent of bills were found to be inaccurate. The average customer lost service just twice, for an average duration of 2.8 hours, excluding major storms. The SERVE Standards for reliability are an average of 2.5 outages lasting 3.5 hours, excluding major storms.

"While we're always looking for ways to reduce those numbers, they speak of an incredible employee commitment to good maintenance, and doing whatever it takes, whatever the weather, to serve customers," Young said.