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Con Ed’s Customer Satisfaction Plan

Attention New Yorkers: Con Edison does not care about making any more money off of you.

At the Future of New York City conference today, several business leaders held forth on the future of business in the recession. Jamie Dimon took issue with the pervasive view that Wall Street compensation should be purely performance-based, saying that some jobs were tough enough without performance-comp pressures. NASDAQ’s Robert Greifeld asserted that over-the-counter derivatives market could be the next area of growth. And Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke, speaking to WNYC host Brian Lehrer from the conference, said the utility giant planned to stop growing its business.

“In many cases, it’s less expensive than building additional substations,” said Burke.

According to Burke, the company plans to focus on helping customers lower their energy bills — by educating them about energy-efficient options like compact fluorescent light bulbs remembering to turn off the lights, and offering help on those who are having trouble paying their bills.

“I think it’s in every organization’s interest to have their customer meet their needs,” he said. It’s easy for him to say: It’s not like people are going to stop using their computers or flat-screens.

For a company that’s basically a monopoly and which declared a 56 cent-per-share dividend in the fourth quarter (albeit also a 23 percent profit loss), there seems to be no need to make nice with customers. But Con Ed still needs the street, and we expect to hear much more spin like this from companies of all sizes as the months wear on. Credit-crunched and cash-poor businesses in worse shape than Con Ed, with stock values in the gutter, will need to find creative ways to explain to the street why costs must be sustained and revenue isn’t growing, since investors like to see their money grow, no matter what economy we’re in. It’s an academically interesting dichotomy, based almost entirely on confidence: Investors need to feel that a company has strong future potential no matter what its current financials, while companies need the confidence that investors will dole out their cash — and will do what ever is needed to make thathappen (see recession, causes of). Con Ed seems to be spinning its way to a “buy” rating (and it’s working, too; Citigroup last month upped the company from a hold to a buy).

When we come out of the recession, will such talk go away? It’s hard to imagine it won’t. For now, keep those lights on while you can.

Tags: business, Con Ed, economy