6.1.D ERMUSR 11-10-2020UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING
TO:FROM:
ERMU CommissionJennie Nelson – Customer Service Manager
MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER:
November 10, 2020 6.1d
SUBJECT:
Staff Update
ACTION REQUESTED:
None
DISCUSSION:
Significantwork has been done over the last couple weeks on a Petition & Waiver
Agreement for a customer whose well failed and needed to connect to city water. The
agreement is signed and will be assessed this year.
New electric and water services continue to be steady for the customer service
department. There are a few apartment buildings that are in the construction phase and
will end up taking quite a bit of time for our Billing Specialist to setup in the billing
system.
Applications to temporarily stop trash service have increased as people prepare to leave
the area over the winter.
Our Credit and Collections Specialist worked through some software challenges with the
Minnesota E-Heat system to upload our cost and consumptions for energy assistance
season. She was very patient as the State upgraded their software and she ended up
having to provide a lot of the data manually to assistance providers.
I have been working with our accounting department and our Conservation and Key
Accounts Manager on two custom reports from National Information Solutions
Cooperative (NISC). There is a lot of back and forth with NISC’s programmers, but we are
making headway!
I attended the APPA Customer Connections Virtual Conference on October 27 and 28.
While it was certainly not the same as attending in person, they tried to engage the
attendees and provide valuable information. The conference was largely centered
around the COVID-19 pandemic and the biggest takeaway for me is that we are handing
the pandemic in a very similar way to other utilities. It was great to hear some
brainstorming on how to tackle new challenges and I left the conference feeling good
about the decisions that have been made in the customer service department and the
company overall. I also listened to some sessions on AMI, customer journey mapping,
and measuring call center success.
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