ESKOM has received 22 percent lower call volumes in the current financial year when compared with the same period last year, a factor partly attributed to the launch of various digital self-service channels and technologies as an alternative for customers to contact the South African state-owned electricity producer.
Eskom hoped to continue seeing an increase in the use of these self-service channels going forward.
“Eskom customers can contact Eskom either by using the chatbot, Alfred and the MyEskomApp rather than the telephone calling in by phone when requesting services.
The country’s state-owned power generator had received 6.2 million calls during the 2019/20 financial year and 7.5 million calls from its customers in the past financial year.
“The increase in call volumes can be attributed to an increase in Eskom’s customer base as we continuously drive the strategic goal of universal access to electricity for all South Africans,” it said.
The reasons for customers’ calls to Eskom included reporting and getting status feedback on power outages, outages due to electricity theft, infrastructure vandalism causing transformers to explode, making account enquiries, submitting their own meter readings, applying for new supply and and other general account queries.
Eskom said it experienced high call volumes from KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Gauteng. Comparatively, lesser call volumes were registered from Mpumalanga, North West and Northern Cape.
However, Eskom said it generally did have sufficient resources to resolve the customer queries.
“Through the use of predictive resource models, Eskom is able to optimise the allocation of all of its resources, including technicians, vehicles and materials. The costs and resources required to attend to these faults vary widely depending on the type of problem, the severity of the problem and the location, whether rural or urban.”
On average, the entity said it resolved more than 90 percent of the customer cases affected by an outage within 7.5 hours.
Meanwhile, the power generator said in a media statement on Monday that it had noted with concern that there was an increase in the number of customers refusing Eskom and/or Eskom-appointed contractors access to their properties. It said this resulted in customers being billed on estimates instead of actual readings. The long-estimated customer accounts were said to contribute to poor estimation performance, which resulted in the under-or over-billing of customers.
Failure to grant Eskom access to the property for the purpose of meter reading or any other authorised work, may result in the supply being disconnected and penalties being charged.
Eskom said its aim was to ensure accurate accounts for all customers. To also improve the billing experience, customers were also encouraged to use the MyEskom customer app and CS-Online to submit their meter readings within the window period stipulated on their Eskom invoice. Customers could only access their meter kiosks if it was safe to do so when submitting their own readings.
The MyEskom app and the online portal also enabled customers to check their balance and report a power failure.
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