Our Actions in Six Areas
High-Quality, Customer-Driven Service
- Our commitment to the future
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- Tailor our programs to satisfy all our customers
- Support customers who are having difficulties
Hydro-Québec regularly surveys its various customer categories to determine and understand their needs. We can then improve our services and practices.
Some of our customers have difficulty paying their bills. The company employs various means to help low-income customers and those with payment difficulties:
- We sign payment arrangements with low-income customers
- Our collection employees receive training on the specific problems experienced by low-income customers
- We have set up communication channels with elected representatives' offices and community organizations
- We maintain or restore service during the winter (December 1 to March 31) for residential customers who heat with electricity and are having payment difficulties
In addition, Hydro-Québec complies with the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies and the protection of personal information.
Our main achievements in 2008
Customer satisfaction
- Rollout of the residential phase (2.8 million customers) of the Customer Information System (CIS) caused longer waiting times early in the year; this partly explains the higher number of complaints received in 2008.
- As a result of the popularity of online billing, the number of electronic bills sent rose 52% to 2,360,778.
- Our residential electricity rate is one of the most favorable in North America. For monthly consumption of 1,000 kWh, Montréal currently ranks third, after Winnipeg and Seattle.
- Customers' priority expectations in 2008
- Safety around electrical facilities
- Fair and equitable treatment
- Respect and understanding of customers
- Optimal, low rates
- Accurate, simple bills that meet customers' needs
- Reliability of service
- Rapid repairs and power outage information
- Respect for property during work on the system (residential)
- Concern for the environment in projects and activities
- Future supply of electricity
- Quality of customer service
- Reliable metering
- Energy conservation programs and discounts (residential)
Low-income customers and those with payment difficulties
- The working group on low-income households, composed of community representatives and Hydro-Québec employees (energy efficiency specialists and collection agents), has developed close to 20 possible solutions: implementation began in 2006 and will continue until 2011.
- We signed 207,086 payment arrangements to facilitate settlement of $423.8 million in various overdue accounts.
- We reached 21,909 payment arrangements with low-income customers for $149.5 million. These agreements last a maximum of 48 months and incur no administration fees. In some cases, the electricity bill is reduced.
The new CIS (rolled out from 2005 to 2008) updated the systems used for customer service. These systems were built on a platform of about 200 unintegrated subsystems, some of which were over 30 years old. The CIS will provide integrated management of a large number of operations: metering, meter reading, payment collection, etc.
