(KINGSTON, Jamaica; 2025 January 13): Utility customers are still troubled by customer service issues such as long wait times (both in-store and online), poor communication, and poor physical facilities. These are among the findings from the Office of Utilities Regulation’s (OUR’s) latest annual Mystery Shopping research, conducted in the latter part of 2024.
The Mystery Shopping study across the four major utility providers—Cable & Wireless Jamaica Limited and Columbus Communications Jamaica Limited trading together under the brand “FLOW”, Digicel Jamaica Limited (Digicel), Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. (JPS), and the National Water Commission (NWC)—highlights these significant, recurring service challenges that negatively impact customer experience.
The common issues observed also include inadequate customer service engagement, inconsistencies in communication, and poor physical and digital infrastructure. While some agents demonstrated professionalism and knowledge, customer experience was undermined by inefficiencies, lack of accessibility, unclear processes, and poor responsiveness.
The annual Mystery Shopping research enables the OUR to assess the quality of customer service offered by the regulated utility providers across the various channels. The findings help to inform the OUR’s engagement with service providers over the next period and the focus of its regulatory interventions.
The 2024 findings revealed an average score of 66%, up from the 54% performance level of 2023 across in-store, call centres, websites, social media, and the mobile app. The best-performing providers were FLOW and JPS, at 70%, as shown in the table below.
Digicel (82%) and FLOW (89%) had the strongest call centre experiences, while in-store customer experience among all the providers hovered between …
