Summit Utilities notified its Oklahoma customers that on July 1 the natural-gas provider resumed “normal collections activities” of issuing late fees and disconnections of service for non-payment.
“In light of our transition to new customer service and billing systems, we voluntarily suspended disconnecting customers and charging late fees last fall,” Summit Utilities President and CEO Kurt Adams wrote in a message delivered to customers in early March. “Before lifting that suspension, we will give customers ample notice,” he pledged.
That time has arrived.
Numerous complaints about customer service, billing errors and gas prices were directed at Summit, a Colorado-based company, after its acquisition of CenterPoint Energy’s natural gas distribution assets in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texarkana, Texas, a year and a half ago.
Complications with the implementation of a new computer system, combined with “unusually high energy costs” this winter, “have been annoying and frustrating to our customers,” Adams conceded in his message.
Summit is “working to provide you the customer service experience you deserve,” he vowed.
Billing process errors and confusion “have been perhaps your most frustrating experience with us,” Adams wrote. “We have quickly resolved the billing issues and are confident that your bills accurately reflect your usage and the rates approved” by the Corporation Commission.
Because of the transition to new customer service and billing systems, “we voluntarily suspended disconnecting customers and charging late fees last fall,” Adams wrote.
Customers also expressed frustration with “long call wait times,” so Summit hired 50 more customer service representatives in Arkansas and Oklahoma, Adams said. While call volumes and wait times were high in November and December, “the average call wait time has been 7 minutes over the last 3 weeks,” he wrote in his letter dated March 3.
Adams acknowledged that the cost of natural gas “significantly impacts every family and business we serve.”
Summit does not profit from the cost of natural gas, he wrote; it’s a direct pass-through expense. “Our customers pay what we pay.” The utility company is required to adjust that cost of gas on Nov. 1 and April 1 every year through a filing with its regulators, he said.
An application authorizing CenterPoint Energy Resources to sell its natural-gas assets in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texarkana, Texas, to Summit Utilities received final approval of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in November 2021, approval of the Arkansas Public Service Commission in January 2022, and the blessing of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The assets included approximately 17,000 miles of main pipeline in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texarkana, serving more than 500,000 residential and business customers.
Summit absorbed from CenterPoint almost 100,000 residential, commercial, industrial and transportation customers in 91 Oklahoma cities and towns.
Those include Lawton, Elgin, Fletcher, Sterling, Cache, Geronimo, Altus, Apache, Blair, Burns Flat, Chickasha, Comanche, Duke, Duncan, Mangum, Marlow, Martha, Olustee and Temple.
They also include Cushing, Ada, Arapaho, Blackwell, Canton, Cheyenne, Cromwell, Deer Creek, Earlsboro, Fairview, Garber, Hartshorne, Hominy, Mangum, McAlester, Medford, Nardin, Okeene, Seminole, Stringtown, Talihina, Tonkawa, Vance Air Force Base, Watonga, Weatherford, Wilburton and Wynona.