Vice President, Customer Relations

JOB SUMMARY

This position is responsible for the effective leadership of EPB’s Customer Relations team in providing professional, courteous, and efficient service to our customers. The division is responsible for providing end-to-end customer experience, including billing and payments, contact center operations, outage communication, information about products and programs, and other customer support functions. This role also has the responsibility for utilizing EPB customer service and credit policies to both assist customers and protect the financial interest of the organization.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Provide executive leadership for customer contact and service operations, including:

Customer Operations

• Contact center operations
• New service and account management
• Customer billing and payment operations
• Billing inquiries and issue resolution
• Payment processing
• Collections and payment arrangements
• Service connection and disconnection processes
• Customer complaints and escalations
• Digital and self-service channels

Customer Experience Leadership

• Establish processes that deliver accurate, consistent, efficient, and empathetic customer service.
• Ensure complex and escalated customer issues receive appropriate executive attention and timely resolution.
• Work with Brand Strategies to develop enterprise-wide customer experience strategy aligned with the EPB’s mission and strategic plan, then execute that strategy.
• Effectively utilize all channels, including phone, digital, and in-person, as well as technology to improve customer service.
• Promote and sell EPB products and services as part of customer support activities.
• Use customer feedback, operational data, and service metrics to identify pain points and improve customer experience.
• Develop customer-friendly approaches to payment arrangements, delinquency management, and financial assistance while protecting the financial interests of the utility.
• Monitor billing exceptions, repeated customer issues, account adjustments, and other indicators of systemic problems.

Outage & Emergency Response

• Provide customer-service leadership during storms, major outages, and other emergency events.
• Coordinate closely with system operations, communications, technology, and field personnel to provide customers with accurate and timely information.
• Continuously improve outage communications across digital, telephone, text, web, and other available channels.

Technology & Innovation

• Support modernization of the customer experience through technologies such as customer information systems, CRM platforms, mobile applications, web portals, automated communications, and self-service capabilities.
• Promote thoughtful use of automation, analytics, and artificial intelligence while maintaining appropriate human assistance for complex or sensitive customer needs.

Performance & Metrics

• Establish and routinely review customer-service measures such as:
• Customer satisfaction
• First-contact resolution
• Call answer and abandonment performance
• Digital/self-service adoption
• Billing accuracy
• Complaint and escalation trends
• Payment and collections effectiveness
• Service-order completion

Leadership & Talent Development

• Build, develop, and retain a high-performing customer service organization. Establish clear accountability and expectations for leaders and employees.
• Work with the executive leadership and Customer Relations managers and staff to develop divisional goals and both short- and long-range plans to meet these goals.
• Identify employees with supervisory potential and work with department Managers to ensure that candidates with technical competence and supervisory skills are available when openings in supervision occur.

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance, Statistics or equivalent, from an accredited four-year college or university, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Significant leadership experience in customer service, utility operations, energy services, telecommunications, or another complex service organization.
• Experience with utility billing, customer information systems, contact centers, and digital customer platforms is strongly preferred.
• Must have the demonstrated ability to communicate well, both orally and in writing.
• Must have the demonstrated ability to organize, lead, motivate, inspire, and control the efforts of a large workforce with multiple layers of supervision.
• Must have a broad, detailed working knowledge of customer service billing, payment management, and collections.
• Must have the demonstrated ability to identify organizational problems and introduce needed change with a minimum disruption of the workforce.