Web Site Wins Service Industry SIAA Gold Award for Excellence

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (March 10, 2006)—The new Kansas City Board of Public Utilities’ (BPU) Web site has received national recognition after winning a “Gold” award presented by the Service Industry Advertising Awards (SIAA) group. The redesigned site: http://bpu.com went online last November and was designed by Weyforth-Haas Marketing.

Only 201 Gold awards were given from more than 1,500 submissions from 50 states and four foreign countries. Entries were judged based on creativity, execution and quality consumer appeal.

“Our overall goal was simply to make our Web site as customer-friendly as possible,” says George Powell, director of economic development and retail services at BPU. “We reviewed customer comments about our original site and then developed this new site based on their feedback.”

The new site opens with a quick choice for “Residential” customers to navigate directly to information regarding their water or electric needs like customer service, online bill pay, answers to common questions, energy tips and even a special “just for kids” section. “Business” customers also can access content to meet their needs like economic development information with virtual reporting, vendors section, utility standards and water quality reports.

“Our Web site is much more organized than in the past and makes it very easy for people to do business with us,” notes Nan Wolf, director of purchasing for BPU. “We tried to have as much information as possible just a click away.”

According to Silvia Baldi, senior art director at Weyforth-Haas Marketing, a tremendous amount of research went into the design of the new site. “We examined similar sites throughout the country and felt most of them came across as too institutional and not really designed with consumers in mind,” she says. “The BPU site is now what we call an ‘audience-based’ Web site that is easy to navigate and will serve their needs now and well into the future.”

“It’s very gratifying to win such a prestigious award,” she adds, “but the real winners are the BPU customers who can now easily access important information.”

About BPU

BPU’s water department was originally created in 1909, and its electric utility was operational in 1912. The purpose of the utility, then and to this day, is to provide the highest quality electric and water services at the lowest possible cost. Today the publicly owned utility serves approximately 65,000 electric and 51,000 water customers, primarily in Wyandotte County, Kansas. The mission of the utility and its 650 employees is “to be the utility of choice and the workplace of choice, while improving the quality of life in the communities we serve.” BPU’s Web site is at www.bpu.com.

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