Commission recap, 9/10/2024 - Grant PUD’s extended call center hours make a difference. More...

Since January, Grant PUD customers have been able to talk with a live and local customer service representative on seven days a week (excluding holidays and training days) from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The program has enabled customers to have greater access to help for their accounts and power service, said Cary West, Senior Manager of Customer Solutions during his department’s quarterly report for the PUD commissioners during their meeting on Sept. 10.

West said that there are two customer service reps on duty on Saturdays and Sundays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. These reps have access to customer account information, can take payments, and can relay information about outages and other power concerns to utility staff on the weekends. On Mondays through Fridays during typical peak days of the week, more local customer service representatives are on duty to perform the same services from 6 to 6. 

“This enhances our customer experience,” West said about the weekend coverage. “It also adds bandwidth, alleviating workload pressure Mondays through Fridays.”

One of the greatest benefits are during large outages. Prior to having customer service reps answering calls, Grant PUD’s Power Dispatch Center would often be overwhelmed by call volumes. Now with the two reps on duty, they can take a high volume of calls during large outages, freeing up staff in the Power Dispatch Center to focus on restoring power safely and quickly. 

West added that his department is achieving its goal have having less than a five-minute hold time for at least 80% of calls to the call center. The average through June is 90%. One area needing improvement are for wait times exceeding 10 minutes. The goal is for fewer than 1% of calls to have a wait time of more than 10 minutes. Through the first six months of the year, the average is just over 4%. West said calls with longer wait times typically occur during major power outages or times when staffing levels dip during the day due to lunch coverages for the team. 

West added that over 8,600 Grant County households were qualified to receive a $200 credit on their Grant PUD accounts through the recent Washington Families Clean Energy Credits Program. 

View the full presentation on pages 22 to 45 of the presentation materials. 

Commissioners also:

• Approving a change order increasing the not-to-exceed amount of $586,915 on a contract with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to continue monitoring and evaluation of hatchery programs for Grant PUD. See page 50 of the commission packet.

• Approved the purchase of a 20-acre Grant County Assessor Parcel No. 161201000 in Section 2 Township 17 North, Range 27 E.W.M owned by Nester Hernandez, Nestor Homes LLC for $18,000. The land purchase to comply with a shrub-steppe habitat mitigation program required by the state. See page 200 of the commission packet.

• Made amendments to the district’s governance. See page 11 of the commission packet.

• Received a second-quarter financial forecast from the Finance Department. View the full presentation on pages 1 to 21 of the presentation materials.

• Heard a quarterly update from the Environmental Affairs Department. View the full presentation on pages 46 to 62 of the presentation materials.

• Received a quarterly update from the Cultural Resources Department. View the full presentation on pages 63 to 72 of the presentation materials.