8/14/13

(Note to those who buy hold music:  IF you're going to buy "looped" music DO NOT keep your customers on hold for 22:45 minutes.  The next gone postal case is going to be someone with a Bluetooth earpiece in one ear & a hammer in hand running towards the IT/Telephony department)

Deep breath.  OK, got the last of the "Dad's dead" calls done (I hope).  This one was to Dominion Power & it was saved for last because I thought it would be the easiest.  Not so much...not in the least.  Lisa the CSR that first took my call was professionally respectful and unnecessarily apologetic that she had to put me on hold in order to research the situation.  I got the feeling very early on that the first line csr agents are not trained to deal with customers that die.  I know it’s probably not something every rep with encounter every day but it has to happen more often than never right? 

After about 2 minutes she came back and let me know if I canceled the budget plan that Dad was on (I put him on it several years ago when it looked like he was going to go to jail for his multiple DUI charges) the total balance would be come due.  Since I needed to keep the power on until I finally figure out what I’m going to do with the house I couldn’t just write it off to the “dead people’s file”.  She wasn’t sure if I would have to put the power in my name or…

Oh wait… who’s Janice Huntley; is she available?  She is on the account and she’s the only one that can make changes to the account.  *Sigh* Poor Lisa didn't know what to say after I told her Mom was not available since she died in ’98.  At that point there was nothing more she could do, she had to transfer me to the Residential Department – again she apologized almost sadly.

The automated voice told me my wait would be about 20 minutes but that I could do nearly everything under the sun on the Dom.com website.  Everything it turned out EXCEPT everything I needed to do.  Great.  Ms. Snowden had to go through all the same steps that poor Lisa did 23 minutes earlier.  She was able to cancel the budget plan so instead of owing $188 by 8/30 I only have to come up with $109.53.  (Is anyone else laughing with me?)  The next bill will go out on 9/16 & will only be for the power used (“so the more you turn off the lower your bill will be”…really Ms. Snowden, I didn’t know that).

So now on top of my own stuff I've taken on Dad’s power, water, and property taxes on both houses … I’m almost afraid to ask if there’s anything else I forgot to take care of or someone I should have called.  No time to worry about it now, I’m running late for work.