JPS customer service stress cited by OUR

 

The Office of Utilities Regulation has asked the Jamaica Public Service Company to develop a plan of action to address the gap in customer access to their services, caused by the closure of ten of its fifteen Customer Service offices. 

 

The OUR's Parish Closure Impact Assessment - Phase 2, revealed that 77 per cent of JPS customers in parishes without CSOs want the offices to be reopened.

 

The study found that cost, convenience, and access are the main reasons why nearly eighty per cent of JPS customers surveyed think the company should reopen some of its offices, despite customer satisfaction with intermediary bill payment agencies and other channels such as the mobile app and online payment portals.  

 

OUR Director General Ansord Hewitt says the study conveys the sentiment of most of JPS's customers affected by the office closures.

 

The study showed that only five JPS customer service offices now serve more than half a million customers, with only two offices available to customers in the counties of Cornwall and Surrey, combined.

 

The offices were closed during the period February 2020 to March 2021 and JPS justified the closures by citing dwindling customer footprint, fuelled by digitisation and COVID-19 policies.

 

The OUR says, having analysed the results, it has asked JPS to review the space it has made available for customers to interface with staff and develop a customer solution that satisfies face-to-face requests for its services. 

 

These include new service applications, reporting complaints, making bill queries and requests for service reconnection and disconnection.

 

It says JPS should consider and act on recommendations for opening convenient hubs in high-traffic areas and/or at post office locations, making the MyJPS Mobile App zero-rated to offset any increased cost to customers, and negotiating with bill payment agencies to install courtesy phones at these locations.

 

The research was commissioned by the OUR in light of public outcry about the office closures, and the initiatives announced by JPS to mitigate the impact of such closures on its customers.