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Frequently Asked Questions
First Quartile helps North American utilities understand their performance, identify improvement opportunities, and support operating decisions with independent evidence. We combine utility benchmarking, a structured peer learning community, performance improvement support, and executive decision support to help leaders determine where to focus and how to move forward.
First Quartile works with North American utilities, including investor-owned utilities, municipal utilities, and cooperatives. Our benchmarking programs focus on electric transmission and distribution and customer service operations. Participants bring different operating environments and utility sizes to the peer community.
First Quartile brings proprietary operational benchmark data and direct peer experience into its consulting work. Our team combines utility operating and leadership experience with an ongoing view of how peer utilities perform. That foundation helps us explore the decisions and management practices behind the numbers and work with your team on approaches that fit your organization.
Benchmarking helps your utility see where it stands and identify performance gaps. The Peer Community helps your team learn how other utilities approach similar challenges. Gap to First Quartile Performance helps leaders evaluate options and turn those insights into operational improvements. Decision Support provides independent evidence to help explain and support decisions to boards, regulators, and other stakeholders.
No. First Quartile works with utilities of different sizes, including investor-owned utilities, municipal utilities, and cooperatives. Members contribute operating experience that other utilities can learn from and adapt. Contact us to discuss whether the program is a fit for your utility.
About First Quartile
Utility benchmarking compares a utility’s performance with that of peer utilities to give internal results an external point of reference. First Quartile examines performance outcomes alongside operating volumes, management practices, and emerging issues. This helps leaders understand performance differences and identify questions that deserve closer attention.
First Quartile offers two specialized benchmarking programs: Electric Transmission & Distribution Benchmarking and Customer Service Benchmarking. The programs address the operational systems that deliver utility service and the customer-facing activities that shape the customer experience.
First Quartile’s Transmission & Distribution Benchmarking Program examines system reliability, operating costs, staffing, work practices, vegetation management, safety, grid resilience, capital investment, and other operational measures. Some reliability measures include the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), and Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI). The results inform decisions about reliability, workforce management, assets, and cost.
First Quartile’s Customer Service Benchmarking Program examines contact center operations, billing and payments, credit and collections, digital self-service, customer satisfaction, and AMI and meter operations. Measures include average speed of answer, call abandonment rate, billing accuracy, electronic billing and payment adoption, and write-offs as a percentage of revenue. These comparisons help utilities understand performance and identify areas for closer review.
First Quartile’s benchmark data comes from participating utilities through recurring questionnaires. Participating utilities help refine the questions and definitions, while First Quartile works with members to validate submissions and clarify differences. The resulting proprietary dataset includes detailed operating information unavailable through public filings or internet searches.
First Quartile’s benchmarking program follows a 12-month cycle. It includes questionnaire development, tiered data collection, a summer Insights Conference with in-person and virtual participation, and a customized strategic readout in the fall. In the readout, we interpret your utility’s results against the peer panel and discuss specific improvement opportunities.
Data collection effort depends on the program, the sections your utility completes, and how readily the information is available internally. Consistent questions and definitions can help streamline participation over time. First Quartile provides data-entry resources and support to help participants understand the requirements.
Benchmarking
The First Quartile Peer Community connects utility professionals who are working through similar operational challenges. Members share approaches, implementation experience, and lessons learned through facilitated discussions and direct connections. The community helps your team explore the practices behind benchmark results and consider what could work at your utility.
Participation in the First Quartile Peer Community is an exclusive benefit of membership in a First Quartile benchmarking program. The community serves directors, managers, supervisors, analysts, and support staff across customer operations, transmission, distribution, reliability, safety, and related utility functions.
First Quartile Peer Community members connect through discussion forums, the annual Insights Conference, direct peer-to-peer networking, and ad hoc surveys. Sessions can include process walkthroughs, live demonstrations, and working discussions about implementation. Members can also continue conversations directly with peers who have relevant experience.
First Quartile’s peer discussions address the practical issues utility teams are working through, including affordability, credit and collections, customer satisfaction, electronic billing adoption, artificial intelligence, reliability reporting, staffing, and storm response. Members compare approaches and discuss the operating conditions that affected their results.
Yes. First Quartile Peer Community participants operate under a strict confidentiality agreement that supports candid discussion of operational challenges and experience. Contact us to discuss the confidentiality requirements associated with participation.
Peer Community
Gap to First Quartile Performance is First Quartile’s improvement support for utilities that have identified an opportunity and need to determine how to act. We work alongside leaders to clarify the problem, evaluate alternatives and tradeoffs, build alignment, and strengthen the organizational capability needed to execute and sustain improvements.
First Quartile helps your team connect performance gaps with the operating decisions and practices that may be driving them. Benchmark results identify where to look, while peer experience provides practical examples to explore. We then help your leadership team evaluate those lessons in the context of your utility’s priorities, constraints, and operating model.
First Quartile supports improvement work involving reliability, customer service, storm preparation and response, budgeting, and organizational readiness for growth. Depending on the challenge, we help leaders examine planning, work management, investment choices, coordination, and other decisions that influence performance.
First Quartile works with your team to develop the approach and transfer knowledge so employees can own and sustain the results. We involve the leaders and employees responsible for the work, from planners, dispatchers, and field personnel to customer operations teams. This keeps improvement efforts grounded in operational reality and the interruptions utility teams manage every day.
Gap to First
First Quartile Decision Support helps utility leaders explain and support operating decisions with independent benchmark evidence and peer context. We provide targeted analysis for questions about staffing, vegetation management, sourcing, capital investment, and customer operations, including decisions facing board or regulatory scrutiny.
Yes. First Quartile helps utilities use third-party performance evidence to support rate cases, regulatory inquiries, board discussions, and investment decisions. We connect the decision under review with relevant peer costs, outcomes, and operating practices so leaders can explain the basis for their approach.
First Quartile adapts decision support to both planned initiatives and time-sensitive questions. Engagements can include extended support for a rate case or targeted analysis for an upcoming committee meeting. Contact us with your deadline and the decision you need to support so we can discuss the appropriate scope and timing.
Contact First Quartile to discuss your utility’s priorities and the questions you need to answer. Whether you want to understand your performance, learn from peers, address an operational challenge, or support a specific decision, we can help you identify the appropriate starting point.
Decision Support
Still have a question?
Tell us what your utility is working through. We’ll help you determine how First Quartile can support your next decision.
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