by Jay Malin, Managing Director

Initially, we sent and received requisite COVID-19 emails describing our business continuity plans and security posture.  Some were quicker than others.  As many of us head into the third week since invoking business continuity plans and working from home, with no immediate return to “normalcy”, I’ve started to look for resources and opportunities to assist our customers.

Energy Central outlined in this story several important steps utilities – or service organization for that matter – must take in order to safely and reliably continuing servicing and engaging customers.

We’re proud of the approach several of our customers have adopted by keeping customers informed.  Some examples include notices to vulnerable and critical groups as well as appropriately flexible payment messaging.  A municipality was seeking to regularly notify customers of its COVID-19 plans and deployed a simple text subscription service within a day.  No fancy portals to navigate – simply a keyword and number to text for vital community updates.  Contact centers are being pushed to the limits and text chat to the 10-digit number – even asynchronously now provides relief to those frustrated by long voice queues.

As to our own business and trade show cancellations, we’re looking to deliver more informational content in the form of short podcasts and more in-depth webinars, covering various business and IT topics, and featuring both our technical leadership team and external speakers.  We hope this will help IT leaders and program managers as they evaluate new technologies and service offerings.  Now is a good time, when available, to consider new approaches and use this opportunity to hone in on what’s really important to our community.

Let us know how we can help and in the meantime, please stay safe.