Showing our customers how much we care was the focus of recent efforts to help residential households experiencing financial hardships and struggling to pay their electric bills. And part of this work included a special assistance campaign that went above and beyond to help struggling JCP&L customers.

“A member of our team, Natasha Brady, pitched this idea. We identified a group of customers who were past due three or more months that had not reached out to us at all about payments – and who had no email addresses on file,” said Stacy Cochran, supervisor, Customer Service Compliance and co-lead of the Low-Income Customer Engagement Team. “To help resolve their issues, our team piloted an outbound calling campaign to contact approximately 2,300 New Jersey customers and help them get on payment plans or start the steps to enroll in available assistance programs.”

A group of customer service representatives volunteered to work overtime on two different weekends to call these customers, helping provide assistance with a personal touch. Customer response was very positive – which team members shared in a group chat throughout the effort.

“One customer said it was wonderful we called because she had been applying for assistance programs, such as the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), but had tons of questions,” said Kristen Riley, Customer Service assistant. “She was so happy to have someone proactively contact her to guide her through the next steps to take. It made working on a Saturday totally worth it!”

Customer Service Representative Wendy Minaya was moved by assisting another customer who had fallen on hard times: “She recently lost several close family members and was very relieved to receive a call from us. I set her up on a payment plan and gave her phone numbers to call for additional assistance.”

To date, JCP&L has received 49 assistance grants from local agencies on behalf of these customers and completed 52 customer enrollments in assistance programs. The company also has received over 600 payments from these customers.

“While we were only able to speak to a small percentage of customers on our list, we successfully collected some payments and provided much needed reassurance and a helping hand to get our customers started with payment plans and agencies that can help,” Stacy said.

The campaign continues to produce positive results, according to Stacy. “Previously, these customers were not engaging with us at all,” she said. “We reached out to see how we could help, and our data shows that some customers are definitely taking action now. A human-focused, empathetic approach got the job done – and made a gratifying difference to many households experiencing hard times.”