Lower Valley Energy CEO Jim Webb joined SVI to promote a new text message alert system to the company is rolling out.
He says no one hates outages more than himself, but he understands when it happens people appreciate some information. He says people like to know three things.
“First thing… they want to make sure Lower Valley knows that they’re out,” Webb said. “Second things is that crews are on the way and then they like updates during the outage so they know what’s going on. Then they also want to know when it comes back on.”
He says there are two new systems the company is introducing. One is on the website (https://www.lvenergy.com/). This is an outage map. Then there is a new notification system which will au- tomatically notify the community when there is an outage through a text message.
“It’s interactive,” Webb said. “So, you can react to it and text back.”
He says you will be notified when it comes back on, but the power may still be off where you’re at. The CEO says you can text back letting the company know what you’re still experiencing. You can also text to notify the business of an outage. He says he understands not everyone loves getting texts.
“I want people to know that…it’s not going to be abused,” Webb said. “We’re not going to give you the deal of the day. If you get a text from us, it’s related to an outage.”
He says anyone that has given a phone number that receives texts should have a text already from Lower Valley Energy. He also says if you do not want to receive the text you can just respond back with STOP. He says if you haven’t gotten one that may mean the company does not have a good texting phone number for you. You can up- date that at the company’s website at the Outage Center link. You can also call them at 307-885-3175.
He says they have great technology in place to let them know what their systems are doing. He says it is still complicated though.
“When the linemen go out there, it’s a huge puzzle,” Webb said. “I know people want frequent updates and we’re trying to get good at that, but a lot of times we don’t know until we get out there.”
He says there are a number of reasons things go wrong such as trees on the line, animals in the line, and when it is -20 degrees something can break. He says despite these systems, they may not know you’re out. So, the CEO says to still call when you’re experiencing an outage.
He also says implementing this new alert system is not an indication of a lot of outages. It is Lower Valley Energy trying to get better and be responsive to its cus- tomers.
“One complaint we get is they don’t know what’s going on during an outage,” Webb said. “So, we’re trying to address that.”
He says they are also working with the radio stations and the company’s website during a large outage.
