The Ask Oncor website and corresponding hotline, 1-888-875-6279, give customers an opportunity to request information about Oncor, the Texas electric market or electricity in general and get an answer from an Oncor expert within two business days.
“We expect to get questions on everything from ‘How do I switch retailers?’ to ‘What is a kilowatt?’ and everything in-between,” Oncor Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer Brenda Jackson said. “Right now the site is in its first, simple phase. Over time and with customer feedback, it will evolve and change to become an even better resource for customers.”
The Ask Oncor website and hotline project is part of the challenge Oncor Chairman and CEO Bob Shapard put to Jackson, who became the company’s first CCO in May, one of only approximately 300 CCOs worldwide. Shapard and Jackson’s goal is for customers to see Oncor as a company they can trust — as a trusted advisor in the Texas electric market.
“Through this project, we hope customers will begin to see us as a trusted source for objective information — the people they turn to for help,” Jackson said. “As we’ve heard multiple times since the smart meter questions began and the February snowstorm, customers need and want someone to turn to. Before we began stepping up, there wasn’t really anyone serving them.”
Many Oncor employees have already been engaged in answering customers’ questions through Ask Oncor open house events and recent one-on-one meetings with customers. The website and hotline are two more ways Oncor can interact with and help customers for what Jackson hopes will be “a robust process of two-way communications between our customers and Oncor that will continue indefinitely.”
“While this type of website is very new to us, helping customers is not a new frontier for Oncor,” she said. “When I started with the company just out of school, I was immediately impressed with how Oncor put the customer first. I’m thrilled to get back to our roots and really show customers that they matter to us.”
