Blue Ridge Electric Call Center Manager Speaks at National Conference
For Immediate Release
Contact: Renee Whitener, Director of Corporate Communications, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, (828) 758-2383 ext. 3213; Pager:1-800-471-1323; or E-mail: Renee Whitener
Lenoir, North Carolina (August 10, 2004) – Sandra Hicks, Caldwell district and call center manager for Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, was invited to speak at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s national member relations and marketing conference held recently in Columbus, Ohio.
Hicks represented Blue Ridge Electric as a manager of a nationally recognized model cooperative call center. Blue Ridge Electric’s general customer service ratings also place it among the top scoring electric utilities in the country in the area of customer satisfaction.
At the national conference, Hicks was one of the three panelists presenting different aspects of customer service and its importance in today’s business environment. Hicks focused specifically on the role call centers fill in serving the needs of cooperative members and meeting customer satisfaction goals.
Blue Ridge Electric’s call center and customer service department delivers service to the cooperative’s 67,000 consumer owners as well as to customers of the cooperative’s wholly owned subsidiary, Blue Ridge Energies, LLC. Both companies regularly measure customer satisfaction and receive ratings that place them among the top in their industry.
Results from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, one of the most recognized customer satisfaction indices in the United States, has shown Blue Ridge Electric to achieve some of the highest satisfaction scores in the nation as rated by its members.
“When you’re a member-owned electric cooperative like Blue Ridge Electric, you place a special importance on serving the customers of the utility because they’re also the owners of the utility,” said Hicks, who has worked for Blue Ridge Electric for 29 years. “We continuously try to find new and improved ways to meet the needs of our member-owners,” she added.
Blue Ridge Electric is a not-for-profit, member-owned electric cooperative serving some 67,000 member owners in offices located in Lenoir, Boone, West Jefferson and Sparta. Its subsidiary, Blue Ridge Energies, provides propane and heating fuels to Caldwell, Catawba, Watauga, and Ashe counties as well as parts of Alleghany County. It also features showrooms selling gas logs, fireplaces, heaters and stoves in the district offices of Blue Ridge Electric in Lenoir, Boone and West Jefferson.
