New York fines RG&E and NYSEG millions for poor customer service ...Middle East

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The New York State Public Service Commission has fined RG&E and NYSEG millions of dollars for failing to meet customer service benchmarks.

The original fine for RG&E was nearly $5 million, but it has been doubled to $9.8 million due to last year’s unmet benchmarks.

NYSEG’s fine has also been doubled to approximately $11.2 million for similar reasons.

Back in May, an audit was released which showed major billing issues and customer service problems at both utilities. The audit highlighted billing, customer service and performance issues, which News10NBC Investigative Report Jennifer Lewke has reported on for years.

RELATED: Audit reveals potential violations, prolonged estimated meter readings at RG&E/NYSEG following News10NBC investigations

Christine Alexander, the vice president of RG&E, says in the “grand scheme of things,” Alexander is satisfied with where they are.

“Am I satisfied with this result? No. I do think we have a long way to go in terms of getting better,” said Alexander. “Every single day, everyone who works here is focused on that and we’re dedicated to serving our customers.”

NYSEG & RG&E said it continues to make good progress on customer service metrics, including increasing the number of calls answered in 30 seconds from 30% to 70%.

NYSEG & RG&E also said the state’s evaluation criteria still rely on pre-COVID standards, which “fail to account for the ongoing challenges posed by growing delinquent balances and operational constraints.”

Read the full statement from RG&E below:

“Today’s announcement by the PSC tells only part of story regarding NYSEG and RG&E customer service metrics.

The PSC announcement does not cover the significant progress NYSEG and RG&E have seen in their customer service metrics since 2022:  Increasing our percentage of calls answered in 30 seconds by 30 percent to better than the 70% target, decreasing our percentage of estimated bills issued from 12 percent to under 1.5 percent at NYSEG and from 28 percent to less than two percent at RG&E, well below the respective 4 and 10 percent targets all while holding our customer satisfaction steady or improving it to nearly 85 percent.

While these accomplishments are significant, they unfortunately did not meet the Commissions’ current threshold for success. This is largely due to evaluation criteria that continues to vary across New York State Utilities and, in the case of NYSEG and RG&E, still rely on pre-COVID standards. These outdated metrics fail to account for the ongoing challenges posed by growing delinquent balances and operational constraints. 

Additionally, the Commission did not take into account the nearly 80% reduction in customer complaints from 2023 with over 28% of those noted as resolved.  In fact, even when complaints have shown to comply with the law, resolved and confirmed by Commission, the complaints are still counted against NYSEG and RG&E.   

Since then, our companies have made substantial progress across multiple fronts. We’ve installed more than one million smart meters and resumed cycle-based tree trimming within NYSEG’s service area,  as approved in 2023. The Companies have stabilized staffing levels in their call centers, held in-person community events around the state to meet our customers where they live, and implemented upgrades in technology and automation. These efforts have enhanced reliability and provide customers with more tools and flexibility to manage their energy usage.

We stand by our progress and have asked the Commission for a waiver from the penalties and urge them to review and standardize customer service metrics across all major utilities in the state to ensure fairness.

Significant progress has been demonstrated in reliability, with improvement exceeding most of the Public Service Commission’s target metrics. We continue to invest in projects to modernize our aging grid, focusing on reliability and resiliency, amounts to more than $1 Billion across our combined service territories which, for NYSEG include 48,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines, installing 45,000 new poles and removing 12,000 danger trees last year alone, for which funding was recently approved after years of underfunding by the Commission.  We have also rebuilt substations across our service areas serving tens of thousands of customers, all to enhance reliability and resiliency for the future. We will continue our forward momentum with further investments and the commitment of our dedicated workforce to continually improve the service we provide to our customers.

Today’s revenue adjustments will serve as rate moderators, credited back to our customers and reinvested into improving our performance.”

Both NYSEG and RG&E failed to meet complaint rate/customer satisfaction metrics set by state regulators. The inital fine for RG&E was $4.9m BUT because the utilty didn’t meet the benchmark last year either, it doubled to $9.8m. This will have to be covered using company profits pic.twitter.com/OcKSVZBDG4

News10NBC previous coverage of RG&E’s billing and customer service issues:

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New York fines RG&E and NYSEG millions for poor customer service WHEC.com.

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