Fighting the heat
Looks like Piedmont Natural Gas is slowly making progress at getting its act together.
You might recall that, last month, officials from the gas company, which serves the Triad, had to stand before the N.C. Utilities Commission and explain what amounted to a customer service mess - long waits on service lines, too many estimated gas bills, and a slew of angry customers calling state regulatory officials to complain.
The company has been filing regular reports on its call center with the state, and it appears there's been some improvement in Piedmont's service during the past month. According to the most recent report, Piedmont answered nearly 95 percent of all customer calls from March 20 to March 26 - up from 81 percent of calls during the same week in February.
But the company's also been getting fewer calls.
From Feb. 20 to 26, Piedmont logged nearly 67,900 calls, while it received about 52,000 from March 20 to 26. That's about a 23 percent reduction in total calls, compared to a 17 percent increase in the answer rate for the company's various call centers.
Also included in the report, which you can view on the commission's Web site, is the company's average speed of answer. Back in February, it was taking the company's trained employees more than 5 minutes to answer the average call. Most recently, it has taken company employees about 50 seconds to answer the average customer call.
During its discussions with the state, Piedmont pledged to answer 80 percent of customer calls within 20 seconds starting in September of this year. If it doesn't the company will pay $50,000 in self-imposed fines for each month of poor service for a year.
Since Feb. 27, the company has increased its trained staff, in-house and third party, that answers customer phone calls by 78 people. That, hopefully, means fewer angry customers - and a little less heat on Piedmont from state regulators.
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