A Vision of Excellence

A Message from CEO John Sturm

Attendees learn about electric vehicles at JCREMC’s first EV Day on Oct. 9.

There’s an important term we use here at JCREMC to describe the people we serve: consumer-member. As a not-for-profit cooperative, JCREMC’s consumers own the organization and have a say in how it operates via a democratically elected board of directors.

 Accordingly, we keep you at the top of mind with every decision we make.
Our Board of Directors, Leadership Team, and staff are committed to serving our community by meeting electricity and internet needs and supporting local causes. Guiding our strategy and many goals is a vision to be best in class with regard to customer service, efficiency, and forward-thinking initiatives. Here are just of the few of the ways we’re realizing that vision.

Customer Service

Every two years, JCREMC participates in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. This national study ranks companies on a 100-point scale based on how people who use their respective services feel about them. This allows JCREMC to benchmark our customer satisfaction scores against similar entities and national leaders in other industries.

In 2021, JCREMC’s score rose to 81 from 78 in 2019—an outstanding accomplishment considering that U.S. Overall Customer Satisfaction fell to 73.6 in 2021 from 76.5 in the first quarter of 2019. JCREMC outperforms the national average of 73 for electric cooperatives. For a non-industry comparison, Chick-fil-A scored an 83 this year.

We attribute our improvement to a few things: compassion during the 2020 COVID-19 economic crisis, outstanding service and reliability, rebate programs, cost-cutting alternative rate structures, and our residential JCFiber expansion.

Efficiency

JCREMC also participates in an annual benchmarking study that compares our performance on 145 metrics to that of peer groups among the 832 electric cooperatives nationwide. JCREMC is in the top 11 percent of cooperatives nationally for consumer growth. Our community is growing rapidly, which means we’re continuously expanding and upgrading our system to meet demand.

JCREMC also ranks in the top 10 percent of Indiana’s electric cooperatives for reliability based on annual outage minutes. We continue to invest in our high-tech distribution and monitoring systems to ensure the staff and crews we have on-call 24/7 are able to restore power as quickly as possible.

In addition to our high-tech monitoring and control systems, we continue to heavily automate our distribution system. Not only can we roll trucks, identify issues, and make repairs faster, we can often temporarily redirect electricity from a different feeder or substation to minimize outage time while permanent repairs are made. This investment is reflected in our outstanding rating.

Importantly, we’ve improved customer service and system reliability while being fiscally responsible. We have operating expenses lower than two-thirds of the nation’s large cooperatives (those with over 25,000 members). We are proud of the way we have been able to keep costs down despite the operational and financial demands of our community’s rapid growth.

Forward-Thinking

When a pandemic suddenly forced schools and workplaces to go virtual, the digital divide between rural and urban areas put parts of our community at a disadvantage. The JCREMC Board of Directors recognized this and, in December 2020, took action to expand JCFiber’s network to reach 5,000 additional homes over 4 years. Six zones are identified for the service roll-out. Home installs are under way in zones 1 and 2 and mainline construction has begun in Zone 3. Fiber optic internet is the fastest, most reliable technology available and will serve our internet consumers well.

We’re paying close attention to the evolving electric technologies headed our way. One example is electric vehicles. JCREMC offers resources to help consumer-members considering an EV purchase make the decision that is right for them. Our EV Experience loaner program allows consumer-members to borrow our Chevrolet Bolt for up to 24 hours. It’s a great way to test drive an EV in a non-sales environment. We also offer rebates for charging outlet installs, free level 2 chargers for qualifying consumer-members, and super off-peak rates that further reduce the cost of powering your electric vehicle.

We also offer a variety of other rebates to help you make efficiency upgrades to your home. Learn more at jcremc.com/savings/rebates.

At the heart of JCREMC’s vision to serve you is our staff of local people who are committed to making our service territory a great place to call home. Whether providing outstanding customer service, restoring electric service, being your trusted energy advisor, communicating important information, or planning and executing system maintenance and upgrades, our staff come to work each day focused on what’s best for our consumer-members. I appreciate them and I appreciate you. Thank you for letting us serve this community.

Fall 2021 – Download the PDF version.