News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Upper Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation has implemented a new way for customers to report outages.
IT Manager Wade Givens said before, customers had to call their local office and report the outage to a phone operator. Now, customers have several options to report an outage, including using a smart app, the company’s website, or by phone.
“You could see that if you have 1000 people out of power, and there were only eight to 12 people that could take that phone call then people couldn’t get through to report their outage,” Givens said. “And we knew that was a frustration to the members. Even if we knew that there was an outage in their area, they didn’t know we knew. And that created a lot of anxiousness.”
Givens said the new system also improves the power outage maps. He said members can go on UCEMC’s website to check and see if there is an outage in the area, which means members might not have to report an outage if they see their location is already reported. Givens said this will help improve efficiency in restoring the power itself.
Givens said the new system is fully functioning and operational.
