Current economic climate calls for major changes in the customer service industry

Some economists suggest that we are not even close to reaching rock bottom of this horrific financial catastrophe. In fact, it would be very difficult to find many families who have not been deeply and profoundly affected by the current economy. Some experts suggest that in some ways, this current economic nightmare is worse than the events that took place during the great depression. That is difficult to confirm since only 3% of Americans; or less than 13,000,000 people alive today were born before 1929. And an even fewer number in this group were old enough to remember what life was like then.
Although there aren't many people alive today that experienced life during that dark time in our history, the stories of how families survived the depression have been passed down through the generations. If we are to emerge from this crisis intact, we may find ourselves turning to these stories of survival as a reference for our survival now. In fact, I sure could have used one of those depression-era survival tactics last week, but unfortunately, I was not able to find one.
Over the course of the last 18 to 24 months, my family has had to make several significant sacrifices. Vacations have been postponed; some indefinitely, we got rid of cable tv and the internet. We went from 2 vehicles to 1, and great effort has been made to spend every grocery dollar wisely. Despite all these sweeping changes, we have never been able to be more than one paycheck away from homelessness. One of these sweeping changes involved a drastic decrease of the amount of electricity we were using. One of these changes involved the thermostat. Instead of setting it at 68 to 70 degrees, we decided to maintain it at 63 to 66 degrees. We also made serious effort to turn off unnecesary lights and even reduced our hot water useage significantly. Although it was a struggle for us at first, seeing the electric bill that reflected our savings made it worthwhile. We were so proud of our accomplishment. And so, for the next three months, our electric bill remained more than 50% bellow what we had paid for each month in previous years. We felt all of our efforts to our reduce our useage had really paid off. We could not have been more wrong.
Back in March, we received our monthly electric bill and when we opened it, we were in shock. We had gone from being billed an average of about $50.00 for each of the three previous months, to a bill showing charges of nearly $600.00. At first we were shocked and angry, but the more we thought about it, we just knew this bill must have contained an error. I called American Electric Power the next day in an attempt to get this problem straightened out. To my shock, I was told the bill we received was completely accurate. I was told that the reason behind this extraordinary bill was due to bad winter weather. AEP went on to explain that because of "bad weather" they were unable to send someone to take an actual reading of our useage meter so an estimate was made. When AEP was finally able to take an actual reading from our meter, it was learned that they had grossly underestimated our useage and we were now being billed for the difference. I explained to AEP that there was no way I would be able to pay that bill in full and added that this particular electric bill was more than our monthly mortgage payment.
Although we were able to make our first payment of the arrangement we'd made with AEP, life happens and we were forced to use the money we'd saved to make our second arranged payment to AEP on something else. A short time later, we received the next AEP bill with the total amount still due, minus our first arranged payment and a notice to disconnect if the total bill wasn't paid by a certain date. Immediately upon receiving this notice, we contacted AEP again and asked them to work with us. We were told that if we did not pay the complete bill within 3 days, our power was going to be turned off. End of story.
The next step I made was to contact the Utility Regulatory Commission and find out what my rights were as a consumer and to attempt to prevent this kind of thing from happening to other AEP customers as well. Sadly, the URC did little more than to put AEP's explanation of events in their own words. In the end, either we pay the entire amount owed or our electricity would be turned off.
Tens of thousands of businesses and organization around the country have launch never before seen programs and incentives to help struggling American families. Food retailers are launching huge campaigns aimed at the dwindling family food dollar, car companies are offering to make your car payments for you if you loose your job, food banks are sprouting up across the country by the thousands. What I want to know is what roll is AEP going to take to assist struggling families? Probably nothing.
This may seem pessimistic, but why would AEP want to launch a similar campaign? What would be the incentive? Grocery stores offer lower prices to keep you from shopping their competition. The auto industry is offering huge incentives simply as a means of survival. No matter the industry, business MUST take drastic measures to retain the consumer base.
AEP will never offer any such program because they don't have to. On the Corporate Citizenship page of their website, AEP states they are concerned about their customers experiencing hardship during these dark economic times. They claim to have access to more than 45 million dollars to assist customers suffering financial hardship. If you read closely, you'll find that of the $45,193,999 they say is available to consumers, only $300,000 of that is contributed by AEP. The remaining 44.9 million come from U.S. government programs. Of all funds available, AEP's contribution consists of only .6% of total funds available.
If that isn't frustrating enough, AEP's P&L for 2008 reports revenues exceeding 14 billion dollars. Sadly, their $300,000.00 contribution to families in need is only .002% of their 14 billion total revenues for 2008. Their P&L also listed AEP's CEO Michael Morris' total annual compensation for 2008 was 9.7 million dollars. But, despite the fact that his annual salary falls just bellow the national average, while blue collar families were facing lay-offs, part-time employment and in some cases, lower wages, Mr. Morris was given a 7% increase.
With the number of unemployment claims increasing sharply, more and more struggling families are going to lose their homes to foreclosure. AEP's rigid inflexibility will continue to play a significant role in these events. AEP, you need to fix this. You need to fix this not because you have to, fix this because you know it's the right thing to do.