KEPCO Striving to Retain Position as Top Customer Satisfaction Corp.
- Company to up its social services to upgrade its public image

The Korea Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) plans to maintain its position as the No.1 company for customer satisfaction for 6 years in a row this year. KEPCO placed first in a customer satisfaction survey, conducted by the Ministry of Planning and Budget last year.
The giant utility firm plans to promote a number of measures to sustain its aim this year.
The company will operate a farm-guard system whereby power stoppages at farms will be automatically noticed so that agricultural farms, animal pits and fish farms may be able to cut their damage to minimum. They will be encouraged to employ all kinds of high-tech IT equipment available to cope with power breakdowns rapidly to minimize damage.
The company will also provide services to the homes that need social s. It will supply free of charges 50 UPS for those who use oxygen masks. They will be supplied to the low-income families who need oxygen masks to prolong their lives.
KEPCO plans to distribute 20,000 stickers warning power breakdowns to prevent possible accidents and other troubles when doing work related to changing power meters and others.
The company plans to hire disabled persons as phone consultants at its Call Centers so that around 5 percent of those employed at those centers may be filled with the disabled persons as in foreign countries from 2 percent which currently stands in the country.
The giant utility firm also plans to set up counseling counters for saving electricity in this age of high oil prices, using Internet websites to publicize the need to save power to individual homes comprising 80 percent of total customers, saving about 1.78 billion won in electricity bills.
The company also plans to issue electricity bills tailored to the needs of its customers patterned after the idea for service improvement which captured the gold medal in 2003. The company feels the plan would upgrade customer satisfaction for its operations.
The power company will provide additional services by inspecting power facilities inside the customer districts. It will specially inspect high-pressure power cables installed in those districts.
It will upgrade its service mind by having its top managers to experience the call center operations so that the company's capacity to cope with customer service may be enhanced.
The operation of service doctors will be upgraded, also by strengthening the training at the JAL Academy.
Services based on e-business will be reformed with its systems improved to those in advanced countries. E-CRM systems will be built according to the type of customers and operated.
In 2003, CRM was at its beginning stages offering SMS service in billing the customers. Internet service was added in the year. It also included inspection of meters at apartments and information on bills. Last year, CRM customers were expanded with diversified information provided. CRM customers got operation and management information with a guide to paying power bills. They also were given publicity for saving power, along with information on power outages and suspension. They also received information on weather, specially on typhoons.
E-mails issued totaled 851,301 cases, while the issuances of SMS came to 929,754 cases.
The company will work to improve its services at its Internet cyber branches. For those moving houses, power bills will be issued within 24 hours through Internet services. They can get from Internet tax payment papers and receipts for payment of power bills. The company plans to build a civil petition service system through Internet for speed, correctness and transparency. The company hopes to become a model case at the government exposition of management reform for 2004.
KEPCO plans to raise its billing service to customers to the level in an advanced country for the sake of the convenience for its customers. It has the account transfer business to be done on real time since July last year for the first time in the country. It was able to cut the error rate to half last year to 49,000 cases from 88,000 cases in the previous year.
The company made an arrangement for customers to pay their shares of installment costs through the Internet from August last year. The arrangement enables them to pay their shares of installment costs through the Internet within 24 hours at any time and any where. When power polls are removed to from one place to another at the request of customers, they have to share the costs.
The company plans to upgrade its meter inspection system to an advanced country level, especially, the high-pressure power remote checking system. Low-pressure remote automatic meter check is having a test-run in the Jeju region.
KEPCO also plans to the customer service evaluation system take its root to invite customer participation. It will strengthen the scientific customer satisfaction evaluation system feed-back.
The measurement system for customer satisfaction has been implemented since 1993 by a professional survey organization. It was able to evaluate the customer satisfaction level on an objective basis. The company strengthened the feed-back of customer evaluation to upgrade the level of customer satisfaction.
The customer satisfaction level reached 70 in 2000, it remained the same in the following year. It was raised to 80 in 2002 and 83 in the following year. It was expected to hit 85 in 2004.
KEPCO has been the top company in customer satisfaction level for five years in a row among government-invested firms in the country. The company has been able to collect various public opinions through dynamic customer participation system. The company has been running an open management reform committee since June, last year. All phases of management have been opened under the open management reform committee. A total of 34 cases of opinions were gathered of which 16 cases were reflected in management policies, 11 cases implemented and 7 cases under consideration.
The company activated the customer satisfaction advisory committee with the participation of citizens, environment, and woman's organizations. It collected public opinions on ways to improve its services through the Internet in September, last year and compared to the previous year, the number of cases of customer participation increased 230 percent or 1,645 cases.
As a national company, it tried to raise its image to be respected by the public. The company carried out social service activities in a resolute manner; It realized the sharing management as the country's largest firm. The KEPCO Social Service Corp. included 267 service groups made of 5,500 members. The number of their activities came to 2,400 with a total of 18,000 men participating. It set up "Love Fund" with the participation of 17,300 men with a total of 86,000 accounts. One account had 1,000 won in deposit. It had a matching grant for Love Fund with social service activity fund totaling 1.32 billion won. The company conducted a lost children campaign and it attached the names of children on them so that they won't be lost in May of last year.
The company printed the photos of lost children on its power bills 186 of them and found 83 of them since 1999. The largest number was found in 2002 with 24.
The company strengthened its public service at its worksites. It provided free airconditioner service in July, last year, to 357 senior citizens' homes and rental apartments for low-income people. The company conducted "Love Customer Campaign" centered on destitute families totaling 15,430 homes. It put ads to show that it is a company doing all of its share of social service as a public company. A variety of themes were used to publicize its corporate image such as "Love Light Delivered by KEPCO."
The company celebrated the 10th anniversary for the foundation of "KEPCO Plaza" and plans to build a cultural structure. Its art gallery will be leased to artists free of charge and provided cash support worth 620 million won. It provide cultural classes for 93 times with the participation of some 5,300 people. nw