J.D. Power and Associates Recognizes Cinergy for Call Center Excellenc

    Business Editors

    CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 17, 2005--After a thorough review, J.D. Power and Associates has certified Cinergy's customer service call centers in Indiana and Ohio. Cinergy (NYSE:CIN) is the first energy company in the nation to be recognized as a J.D. Power and Associates Certified Call Center for providing "An Outstanding Customer Service Experience."
    To become certified, Cinergy's call centers were required to pass a detailed audit of their processes in areas such as quality assurance, process improvement initiatives, recruiting, training, employee incentives, and management roles. In addition, J.D. Power and Associates conducted a random survey of Cinergy's customers who recently contacted its call centers. For certification status, a call center must perform within the top 20 percent of customer service, based on J.D. Power and Associates' cross-industry customer satisfaction research. Certification is valid for one year.
    "In the review of our Call Center, it was noted that our company stresses the importance of customer satisfaction in an industry and market environment that historically has not made call centers and customer satisfaction a priority," said Todd Arnold, Cinergy's vice president of Customer Care. "Our call centers handled 5 million customer calls in 2004, and our target is excellence in those contacts."
    J.D. Power and Associates launched the Call Center Certification Program in 2004 to evaluate overall customer satisfaction and help call centers in various industries increase their efficiency and effectiveness by establishing best practices for handling service calls.
    There are more than 75,000 call centers in North America and an estimated 125,000 worldwide that help customers with product and service questions across a multitude of industries, ranging from credit cards, financial services, investment services, utilities, service warranty and insurance to telecommunications, healthcare and office products.
    Cinergy is the parent company of PSI Energy in Indiana, The Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. in Ohio, and Union Light, Heat & Power Co. in Kentucky. Combined, these companies serve 1.5 million electric customers and about 500,000 gas customers.

--30--KR/cl*

CONTACT: Cinergy Corp. Angeline Protogere, 317-838-1338 (w) 317-367-3306 (p) Kathy Meinke, 513-287-2121 (w) 513-543-5782 (c) Website: www.cinergy.com

KEYWORD: KENTUCKY INDIANA OHIO INDUSTRY KEYWORD: ENERGY UTILITIES SOURCE: Cinergy Corp.

Copyright Business Wire 2005