Perceived quality

The Customer listening Unit of the Parent Company coordinates the process of measuring customer and citizen satisfaction with the services provided in the electrical, water⁶⁵ and public lighting sectors. The Unit works in agreement with the operating companies that manage the services and supports the corporate managers and top management of Acea SpA with analysis of the data collected. The customer satisfaction surveys (“quality perceived”) are carried out with support from a market research company, selected through tender procedures. Since 2022, most of the surveys are distributed evenly throughout the year so as to generate frequent results that allow the Group companies to intervene promptly, where necessary, on the provision of the services and communication. For example, the new continuous survey method for the experience of customers who contacted Acea through the various channels available (callback)⁶⁶ makes it possible to minimise the impact of any seasonal peaks or defined anomalies.
The reports on the results of the surveys of the total sample surveyed are, however, always produced at the end of the six-month period, therefore, in this context the findings of the 2022 half-yearly surveys are presented.
In line with previous years, the surveys on the perceived quality of the services were conducted using the CATI⁶⁷ method; the CAWI method (online surveys), introduced in 2021, was used more significantly especially in relation to the perception of the digital channels. Therefore, also as a guarantee of comparability, it is deemed useful to maintain the representation of only data collected using the CATI method in this context, which made it possible to process the following main indicators:

the overall judgement on the general quality of the service (scale of 1 to 10), where 1 means very bad and 10 means very good, which expresses an instinctive evaluation by customers;
overall opinions on individual aspects of the service (scale of 1-10);
the percentages of satisfaction with the items, or quality factors, selected within each aspect of the service, according to the importance attached to them by the respondents.

In 2022, a total of 39,993 people were interviewed about the quality of the services provided by Acea Energia, Areti – both for the distribution and public lighting service – Acea Ato 2 (Rome and Fiumicino and province), Acea Ato 5, Gori, Gesesa and AdF. The overall opinions expressed on each service, as an average of the two six-monthly surveys, fall within 6.5 and 7.9 (see the charts below and the tables at the end of this paragraph).

The overall opinions expressed on the electricity service and the main aspects into which it is divided indicate, for Acea Energia sales, positive evaluations and above average satisfaction (rating >7/10), both for the service in general (7.7/10 for standard market customers and 7.8/10 for free market customers) and for all aspects of the standard market service and “billing” on the free market; other aspects of the free market, including the “online branch”, are in the area of complete satisfaction (ratings of 8-10). For distribution, managed by Areti, the overall rating was 7.5/10 and the aspects of the service received overall ratings higher than 7/10, with fault reporting achieving complete satisfaction (8/10). Residents of Rome were interviewed about the Public Lighting service for all areas. The overall opinions on the service and its aspects are confirmed to be of average satisfaction (rating of 6-7), with 'fault reporting' receiving higher ratings of 7.6/10.

As regards the water service (sale and distribution of water), the satisfaction of customers of Acea Ato 2 (Rome and Fiumicino and province) and Acea Ato 5 (Frosinone and province), in the Lazio area, customers of Gori and Gesesa, operating in Campania, and customers of AdF, operating in Tuscany, was measured. The overall opinion on the service provided by Acea Ato 2 in Roma and Fiumicino was 7.9/10; all aspects of the service monitored were close to or higher than 8/10. For Acea Ato 5, which operates in the city and province of Frosinone, the overall rating of the service is 6.5/10; the overall opinions on “billing” and “technical aspects” are on the average level of satisfaction, “branch” receives a rating over 7/10, while all other aspects receive overall ratings of complete satisfaction, over 8/10. For Gori, which manages the service in the Sorrento peninsula and Vesuvius centres between the provinces of Naples and Salerno, the overall opinion was also 6.7/10; “technical intervention” recorded complete satisfaction (8.4/10) whereas all other aspects reported opinions equal to or higher than 7/10. With regard to AdF, which operates in Tuscany, in the provinces of Grosseto and Siena, the overall opinion on the service was 7.7/10; the overall rating of the service aspects were over 7/10 for “billing” and over 8/10, i.e. in the area of complete satisfaction, for all other areas. For Gesesa, lastly, which operates in Benevento and its province, the overall opinion of the service was 7.1/10; an overall rating of 7.3/10 was received for both “technical aspects of the service” and “billing”.

The charts below show, for each service, the 2022 overall opinion (scale of 1-10), as the average of the two half-yearly surveys, and Tables 19 and 20 also show the percentages of satisfied customers insofar as the most important quality factors for the electricity sales and distribution services, the public lighting service and the water service, and the comparison with the previous year, with indication of the most significant deviations.