What Do Utility Customers Expect from Self-Service Portals?

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. https://canada-welcome.com/hairdressing-software-what-to-choose-and-why.html In Massachusetts, Eversource has Eastern and Western divisions, together serving over 1.3 million electricity customers across 140 communities.

These enhancements ensure that all customers, regardless of age or tech-savviness, can access and benefit from digital services with ease. The Silverblaze Customer Portal supports mobile-first design, ensuring that your digital tools work smoothly across all devices. Incorporating customizable alert preferences allows users to choose how and when they receive information, enhancing the user experience. Proactive alerts also reinforce the utility’s role as a dependable partner. Features like outage notifications, payment confirmations, and usage threshold alerts build transparency and trust.

“We added a point for each location and included customer contact information,” said Jeske. With the iPads, crew members can use TextPower to draw a circle around an area experiencing outages and send group texts to the customers living within that circle. The city of Bryan also uses the TextPower platform to communicate about upcoming water outages or unplanned outages. The city of Bryan’s water services department is now learning about how to best take advantage of texting, said Jeske.

Public Utilities

They include account shut-off notifications, payment due reminders, disaster emergencies, boil water alerts, service appointment reminders, pipe corrosion inspection notifications and real-time customer surveys. 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. With this communication system, the water services department often needed to field phone calls from customers with questions about issues such as outages.

What Are the Benefits of Meeting Utility Customer Expectations?

The City of Austin provides public utilities to residents of Austin and some surrounding areas. Please choose the type of issue you are experiencing with the page from the dropdown. On February 27, 2026, Consumers Council filed a proposed rule to create a special alternative rate or bill discount, based in part on household utility burden, for low income customers of investor-owned gas, water, and electric utilities. Using publicly reported financial data, this report by the Energy & Policy Institute provides the first systematic look at how much of each dollar spent on electricity ultimately goes to investors. Through advocacy and community engagement, we focus on keeping utility costs affordable by challenging rate increases and working to maintain and expand customer assistance programs.

Must Read — How Ratepayers Foot the Bill for Utility Profit

Educating the public is integral to improving utility customer service levels and can have very tangible benefits to any electric provider. ESG ratings are influenced by elements like corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability initiatives meant to mitigate climate change while contributing positively to the community. These objectives are meant to curb carbon emissions and improve utility customer service scores, but present new challenges to the reliable and affordable energy at the core of consumer interest.

Before BTU began using TextPower to inform customers of outages, the utility would rely on communicating with local media and posting on social media to get the word out. “TextPower gives utilities a great deal of flexibility to utilize texting and integrate it with in-house or third-party software,” said Mark Nielsen, executive chairman and co-founder of TextPower. In addition, separating the two accounts allows customers to opt out of texts from either the water utility or BTU. The electric utility has a separate TextPower account because BTU has more customers, and some of those customers aren’t served by the water utility. The rates are based on water usage in December, January and February.

• In conjunction with the Outage Management System (OMS), TextPower can be used to communicate outages that are predicted or only verified outages.
• For water and electric utilities, it is critical to communicate with customers about potential leaks, rate changes and outages.
• 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.
• In Massachusetts, Eversource’s electric service territory includes 140 towns and covers 3,192 square miles.

“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 communicate outages that are predicted or only verified outages. When an outage threat looms, texting helps get https://sportsbookpayperhead.com/2021/03/27/tips-for-managing-bookie-business-finances/ the word out as quickly as possible. Without the ability to text customers, electric utilities often are inundated with calls during outages.

From there, utility providers can map the highest-impact improvements and work toward a streamlined, secure, and engaging digital journey for every customer. This proactive approach minimizes disruptions, enhances satisfaction, and positions utilities https://californiarent24.com/blog/page/20 as digital leaders in a connected world. Explore electric, water/sewer, or natural gas customer portal solutions designed to deliver these benefits across utility sectors. Customers can rest assured that their accounts are protected, without being overwhelmed by technical hurdles.

• Modernizing your customer portal is not just about adding features—it’s about transforming the relationship you have with your community.
• On February 27, 2026, Consumers Council filed a proposed rule to create a special alternative rate or bill discount, based in part on household utility burden, for low income customers of investor-owned gas, water, and electric utilities.
• With the iPads, crew members can use TextPower to draw a circle around an area experiencing outages and send group texts to the customers living within that circle.
• 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.
• It can include charges for drainage, electricity, solid waste, street service, wastewater, and water.
• To help keep your account safe, we need to double-check that it’s really you.

In the past, the water department hung door tags on doorknobs to inform customers of these issues, said Jeske. A guide to Massachusetts utility companies, electricity suppliers and aggregations—average rates, service areas, contact info and your residential electricity options. Your account has been locked, please wait 30 minutes or use one of the options below.