Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Heat Nor Gloom of Night...

When you’re in the energy business, you spend a lot of time watching the weather. In the middle of winter the weather channel is as much an obsession as ESPN is to a die-hard football fan. Give me a tropical storm forming off the coast of Africa and my heart races like a high school student before the senior prom. Balmy weather in the middle of January? Spring-like days in July? Bah, humbug! I’ll sit inside and mope, thank you very much.

But weather is supposed to provide entertainment, not inconvenience. When the power to our building in Stamford was cut off a couple years ago because hot temperatures melted the underground pipes carrying the power lines, I was annoyed. And when I heard that our Maryland Customer Call Center lost power today because of severe thunderstorms, I thought: “This is going entirely too far.”

Our call center representatives take as many as 70 calls a day each and they pride themselves on two statistics: First, the number of calls picked up within two minutes (86% last month) , and second, the number of customer issues resolved on the first call (92%). They are the unsung heroes of MXenergy, working tirelessly every day to explain our price protection plans, to answer questions about monthly bills, to resolve occasional complaints (yes, we have a few).

Our call center ambassadors are the face of MXenergy, our spokesmen, our good will ambassadors. Not only must they be computer literate and able to access customer information and input data quickly and accurately. They must also be familiar with the enrollment details of 36 different utilities throughout the country. After all, we serve customers in more states and utility territories than any other retail energy marketer in the world. Often they are called upon to make lightening quick judgments. The next phone call could come from Vancouver, British Columbia or from Athens, Georgia. A customer could be calling from a small town in the Texas panhandle or from an apartment on Third Avenue in New York City.

Not all of the calls are pleasant chit-chats. Fortunately, most customers are calling to enroll or to understand their woefully complicated energy bills. But then there are other calls: Energy prices are high and I’m having trouble paying my bills. (We’ll try to work out a payment plan.) Why are my gas bills higher if I’ve lowered my thermostat and have a fixed rate? (Probably because it’s colder outside and you’re consuming more energy.) Why is my renewal rate for electricity supply higher? (Because wholesale electricity costs have risen over 70% since last year.) Customers rarely call to tell us what a great job we’re doing in keeping energy prices low.

But through it all our reps always smile! That’s right, they smile – through the phone! Try calling them some time and you’ll be amazed. You can see them smile because they’re so doggone friendly, even when you call to complain. It’s positively disarming!

So when I learned that the thunderstorm had closed down our call center I was concerned. Not because we might lose some calls. I knew that our customers would not know the difference, because phone calls to our call center would be automatically diverted to another center in Florida. No, I was concerned about our customer reps. What would they do? How would they spend the rest of the day? How would they cope with the deafening silence? Would they suffer withdrawal symptoms like a smoker that goes cold turkey? Would they sit in the stormy darkness, watching the lightening bolts and counting the seconds to the thunderclap?

I imagined them at their stations, ear phones on, fingers poised over the keyboard, eyes fixed on their blank screens, ready to spring into action as soon as the phone lines opened up. The clocks would have stopped and everything would be in a state of suspended animation.

Or maybe they all pushed back from their desks and took a simultaneous break for the first time ever. After all, they can never all be away from their desks at the same time, since somebody is always calling. Now they could stand up, meet each other in the middle of the office (smiling of course), break out a bottle of champagne. Somebody tunes into 98Rock in Baltimore and they start to dance.

Then a couple hours later the skies brighten, the rain stops, and suddenly the hum of the computers and the purr of the telephones returns. Slowly, the life of the call center returns to normal. The calm, steady, smiling voices return. “Thank you for picking me up so quickly. My utility bills are getting out of control. Do you think you could help me budget my energy costs?” “No problem…”

Herodotus, the Athenian historian, wrote something that was translated and inscribed in the pediment of the New York Post Office: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

I hope the ancient Greeks will forgive me if I add a little coda: “And neither shall thunderstorms or tempests prevent our customers from getting through to their customer reps when they need them!”