Description
Wellesley Municipal Light Plant’s (WMLP) Customer Service department is responsible for customer operations related to electric, water, stormwater, and sewer utility service and billing for the Town of Wellesley. Under the supervision of the WMLP’s Office Manager, the Customer Service Representative serves as an important interface amongst the WMLP, Wellesley Department of Public Works (DPW), and its more than 10,000 utility customers and performs a variety of duties relating to the WMLP’s metering, billing, and payment processes. These include, but are not limited to, intaking telephone calls and emails from utility customers and responding to and helping resolve their questions, inquiries, or problems with their accounts and services; setting up and servicing customer accounts; preparing, reviewing, and issuing monthly utility bill statements; tracking and processing customer payments; researching and reconciling customer accounts and billing issues; and performing related customer and utility data input, record-keeping, and correspondence duties.
Duties and Responsibilities:
- Handles, helps resolve, and responds to customer inquiries. received by telephone, email, or in person regarding their new service, ongoing service, requests for termination of service, and billing.
- Reviews and processes applications for new services including computing requisite deposits, validating and entering new customer information, and contacting new customers as needed.
- Upon termination of service, finalizes customer account and computes and issues the appropriate final bill statement, refund, and return of deposit.
- Performs customer and utility data review and entry for bill preparation and issues monthly bill statements to customers via mail or email.
- Receives, computes, and processes customer payments, including security deposits and interest payments. When appropriate, prepares and issues corrected bills and payment refunds.
- Monitors, tracks, and maintains files and records of WMLP and DPW utility meter reading activities and transactions.
- Processes and reviews utility meter and billed consumption data. In the event of inconsistent or discrepant data, initiates actions for reconciliation including conducting further research and review of the data and account, requesting a meter reading, and referring the case to a technician for field investigation and corrective action.
- Assists with the WMLP’s transition to an upgraded electric metering system (AMI). Helps ensure the accurate and timely association between customers and their new meters and billings. Assists the project team in keeping track of specific requests received from customers regarding their meter replacement.
- Informs customers about the Town’s conservation measures and programs for water and electricity; supports the sustainability initiatives of the WMLP.
- Acts as the interface between the WMLP, DPW, and the Wellesley community during storm emergencies and other emergencies. Helps keep track of and prioritize customer calls and outages for restoration.
- Performs other duties as necessary to ensure the smooth and transparent functioning of customer service operations.
- Assists with switchboard/receptionist responsibilities as needed.
Qualifications, Skills and Abilities
- Three years of related experience with customer contact and customer service experience
- Works well in a team environment
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills and the ability to effectively deal with all levels of personnel within the organization and the general public
- Ability to manage customer inquiries and pressure situations.
- Detail oriented and the ability to accurately record and maintain records
- Proficient in data review and analysis
- Excellent organizational skills
Work Environment
Group office setting, the noise level in the work environment is usually moderately quiet.
The Town of Wellesley provides excellent health and retirement benefits along with a competitive salary to its employees. Please submit a cover letter and resume by February 7, 2024 to: Wellesley Municipal Light Plant, Attn: Joanne Scannell, 4 Municipal Way, Wellesley, MA 02481 or email as a word or pdf document to jscannell@wellesleyma.gov. AA/EOE. Salary range: $25.00/hour - $30.00/hour depending on experience.