UNITED STATES—How do you feel about utility companies? I want you to be truly honest with me here because I am starting to feel like all they care about is sucking your money. Why am I making this assertion? I’ve had some serious issues with two of my utility providers that have just rubbed me the wrong way and made me realize customer service doesn’t always matter.
With my water provider, we have sustained a water main break almost EVERY SINGLE WEEK for the past four months. One minute you have water, the next minute you do not have any water at all. You contact them by phone and you are placed on hold for hours. You tried to send an email to no avail, you try to chat with them and you are never get past the first question. The frustration when it comes to trying to get quality service is something that just never seems to unfold.
You know one thing that changes is your bill constantly is on the rise. So much to the point you start to question what you are spending each month and if it is worth what you’re being charged. Have the consumers gotten a definitive answer as to why water service has been interrupted constantly without a solution? No.
When you ask you get the same runaround, but the moment you contact the local news outlets to report a problem, then the utility service wants to come out ASAP to resolve the problem. Nice chance, but you have already been exposed and not in the best way America. If no one highlights the problem, the utility company continues doing what they’re doing as if there is no problem at all. It just makes you wonder what you can do as a consumer to implement change sometimes.
Similar issue with my electric and gas provider, where they are constantly asking for price hikes, but they can never provide a solution quickly when someone’s power or gas goes out. Just recently suffered a power outage and it wasn’t for a few hours, it was several days. Why is this problematic? Well I will tell you. The weather was not pleasant. It was 90 plus degrees outside, factor in the humidity and you’re talking about temperatures in the 100s.
So not only do you NOT have power, but you have to do whatever you can to stay cool. Next, you have to deal with the issue of food. If you have an electric stove, you won’t be cooking. Now if you have a gas stove you can still cook food, which is a good thing. However, your fridge and freezer that is another issue. For me it was a massive issue because I had just went to the grocery store, probably spent $200 plus dollars on food items.
All that frozen meat, frozen seafood completely down the trash; it spoiled and I was pissed to say the least. That was not even factoring all my dairy products that completely spoiled on me. It was beyond frustrating and not in the best way. When you call to ask about when they can expect service to be restored, you cannot get an official date from the company. What’s worst is their customer service reps are literal a**holes. They talk down to the consumer, they are quick to cut you off and it’s almost like you contacting them is a inconvenience to them versus the other way around.
They must forget I’m paying their salary, not the other way around. Hell, I want to know when my electricity which I’m paying hundreds of dollars for each month will be restored. A few hours is one things, but several days is beyond frustrating because you’re now in a pickle where you lose food, you could be in a situation if you work from home where you cannot work, so you’re losing income, there is a lot of frustration that comes with losing power.
Perhaps the biggest is the boredom. You have to conserve the battery on your cell phone for emergencies. If you have a tablet or iPad you are reserving that for the peak time you want to be entertained and before you know it, the sun has gone down and its pitch black outside. If the power is out so is everything else in the neighborhood which makes for a really ominous outlook.
When power is restored you’re supposed to be giddy and excited, but it begs the question, what transpires if you are not properly credited for the outage because trust me the utility company don’t credit the consumers accounts unless you’re inquiring about it.
Trust me I know because I had a utility provider tell me that out right once, “If you don’t callback we will not apply the credit to your account.” Yeah, doesn’t scream you care about me as a consumer, it just tells me you care about sucking up all my dollars, however you can. Guess that is the reality as a consumer, you have to be a bit picky on who you choose, but at the same time that is hard to do when you don’t have many options available to you.
Written By Jason Jones
