Speed and clarity are essential to ensuring water is not wasted and customers know about outages. For water and electric http://i-docs.org/citation-tags/emerging-technology/ utilities, it is critical to communicate with customers about potential leaks, rate changes and outages. Support cleaner energy generation and fight climate change by joining a community solar project In Massachusetts, it’s required that all electricity companies get a certain percentage of their energy from renewable sources. Unitil delivers electricity to 100,000 customers and gas to 80,000. In Massachusetts, National Grid’s service territory includes 168 communities.

• A customer-centric portal empowers users to take control of their accounts, while giving utilities the insights and tools to serve them better.
• Measuring effective utility customer service can vary by operation, but generally consist of similar factors.
• In Massachusetts, it’s required that all electricity companies get a certain percentage of their energy from renewable sources.
• Please choose the type of issue you are experiencing with the page from the dropdown.
• Those alerts – which could include notifications about work being done on the water system – reduce the number of calls from customers about irregularities such as bubbles in the water.

For example, billing and reliability remain integral to improving utility customer service levels; customers want reliable, affordable power, and they want it now. In each case, these factors reflect the anecdotal experience shared above, that customers crave an understanding of their bill and education on available customer options. Measuring effective utility customer service can vary by operation, but generally consist of similar factors. Put it another way, the starting point for most customers is that they want options and better education. But the fact is clean water is an essential part of everyday life in our community.

“There are several benefits to texting,” said Meagan Brown, public information officer at BTU. BTU has a separate account with TextPower because BTU has customers not served by the water department. Now we can push out alerts to those customers,” said Jeske. But in the spring of 2024, the https://www.ourbow.com/geezers-visit-spaces-art-technology-showcase/ department transitioned to using TextPower, which can send automated texts or allow users to manually send group texts.

City of Austin Utilities for Your Home

The Customer Trust score is based upon a consumer company trust rating (0–10 scale) that is converted to a 1,000-point scale to allow benchmark comparisons. The sample design uses a combination of quotas and weighting based on US census data by zip code to ensure a demographically balanced sample based on age, gender, income, race and ethnicity. Consumers are satisfied with neither the healthfulness and taste of their tap water nor utility outreach, especially communications on conservation and community support. Citing concerns over quality and outreach, customer trust in water utilities lags trust in electric and natural gas utilities. If approved, the average home with a monthly natural gas bill of $88 would see an estimated monthly increase of $7.21 (8.2%) starting in November 2026. On Dec. 16, 2025, we asked the Michigan Public Service Commission to approve new natural gas rates to cover these costs.

Eversource Social Media Links

We are proud to offer dependable and reliable electric service to every household and business in our community at some of the most competitive rates in the nation. Our award-winning electric system includes two active power stations, 29 substations, and 3,000 miles of electric lines. This has allowed BPU to be recognized as one of the top public utilities in the country. Log in to your utility accountCreate a new utility accountMake a one-time utility payment

Consumers Council Files Rule to Protect Low-Income Utility Customers

To help customers understand the transition to texting, the water services department deployed a social media campaign to address customers’ initial confusion over receiving texts. This also reduces the numbers of calls from customers, saving time and resources and improving customer satisfaction. It will build a list of phone numbers and they can push their alerts out in one group.”

Using Customer Engagement for Programmatic Growth

Customers can access all their utility accounts in one convenient place. By using your City of Gastonia account number, or Social Security Number and address, you can quickly access information on amounts due, payments received, due dates and disconnect dates. City of Gastonia utility customers now have a more convenient way to pay all utility bills through their Two Rivers Utilities account. The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. Contact Silverblaze to discuss how we can help you exceed customer expectations and future-proof your utility’s digital service. Modernizing your customer portal is not just about adding features—it’s about transforming the relationship you have with your community.

• For water and electric utilities, it is critical to communicate with customers about potential leaks, rate changes and outages.
• In addition, separating the two accounts allows customers to opt out of texts from either the water utility or BTU.
• One more unsuccessful attempt will lock your account for 30 minutes.
• Regular updates on new security features or privacy improvements further demonstrate a commitment to responsible digital stewardship.
• Future-forward portals will also leverage predictive analytics and automation to identify and resolve issues before customers are even aware.
• The Customer Trust score is based upon a consumer company trust rating (0–10 scale) that is converted to a 1,000-point scale to allow benchmark comparisons.

How Do Utility Companies Ensure Customer Data Security?

Timely alerts eliminate surprises and reduce calls to customer support. Customers want to stay ahead of issues, whether it’s an approaching bill due date or an unexpected outage. It can include charges for drainage, electricity, solid waste, street service, wastewater, and water. This feedback widget is not intended for customer service issues. The January 2026 issue of Harper’s Magazine includes a comprehensive article about how utility rates are set by state regulating bodies, and how those commissions are influenced by the profit driven goals of utilities. Utility burden is the percentage of income a household spends on electricity, natural gas, or water service.

Today, National Grid, including its Nantucket Electric subsidiary, is the largest electric utility in Massachusetts and serves electricity to over 3.3M customers in nearly 900 cities throughout New England and New York. Starting in 2000, National Grid made its expansion into the U.S., focusing on both electricity and gas delivery to the Northeast. In Massachusetts, Eversource’s electric service territory includes 140 towns and covers 3,192 square miles. It delivers electricity to all customers on a monopoly basis and is required by state law to provide a so-called «basic service» supply to customers who have not chosen their own choice of supply. In Massachusetts, Eversource has Eastern and Western divisions, together serving over 1.3 million electricity customers across 140 communities.

“Implementing TextPower has allowed us to better communicate and serve our community, which is our goal,” said Brown. Texting would help keep customers informed during such important events and help BTU grapple with the challenges of electricity shortages. This is important to BTU because the outage management system may predict outages on three lines, when an outage may only affect one line. In conjunction with the Outage Management System (OMS), TextPower can be used to https://canadatc.com/technology-for-applying-venetian-plaster-stages.html communicate outages that are predicted or only verified outages. When an outage threat looms, texting helps get the word out as quickly as possible. Without the ability to text customers, electric utilities often are inundated with calls during outages.

Through utility customer service outreach, electric providers can also encourage DER adoptions, which may seem counterintuitive, but that meets customer interest and regulatory needs. It’s time to stop worrying about all the issues that come with low customer engagement, and instead, transform your operations to become the leading utility company in your area. A customer-centric portal empowers users to take control of their accounts, while giving utilities the insights and tools to serve them better. Future-forward portals will also leverage predictive analytics and automation to identify and resolve issues before customers are even aware. Regular updates on new security features or privacy improvements further demonstrate a commitment to responsible digital stewardship. The Silverblaze platform integrates best-in-class security protocols while maintaining a smooth user experience.