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In 2020, after South Carolina’s Rock Hill Utilities implemented texting, the public power utility saw speedy results. The utility's operations include water, electric and sanitation.
Initially, the texting rollout focused on electric outage notifications, which reduced costs by significantly reducing customer calls.
“It was easy to implement and made an immediate impact on customer communications. We continue to see those successes,” said Mike Jolly, Electric Utilities Director at the City of Rock Hill, S.C.
“For Rock Hill Electric, which has over 41,000 customers, texting has been especially impactful because it builds customer confidence in the utility,” said Steven Varnadore, Rock Hill’s Power and Communications Services Manager.
“Customers want to feel confident we are aware that there is a power outage,” he said. “They realize, ‘Okay, somebody's looking into it, they're going to respond.’” This has significantly reduced the number of phone calls from customers asking why their power is off.
“They don't even have to log in to look at our outage customer-facing map. We tell them immediately that we know the power's out and we're responding to it,” he said.
Recently, a substation serving over 6,000 customers was shut down after a snake entered the station and caused a power outage event. Within seconds, the impacted customers received text messages notifying them of the outage.
The speed is due in part to Arcos TextPower's integration with the utility’s outage management system. When an outage is declared, Arcos TextPower automatically sends text messages to affected electric customers enrolled in the texting program. About 80% of Rock Hill’s customers have opted into the Arcos TextPower platform. Arcos TextPower provides text messaging solutions for mission-critical applications for utilities nationwide.
With fewer phone calls, dispatchers have more time to focus on other issues including grouping incidents and dispatching crews.
“When we first rolled it out, there was a night and day difference as far as how we operated with our dispatchers,” Varnadore said. “Now they can completely be logged-out of the phone system because the volume is low enough for customer service to handle the remaining calls.”
In addition, the utility can confirm that power is back on by texting customers. This allows all power to be restored before service crews leave the area.
Texting could also be helpful in the future, when the utility needs customers to curtail their electricity usage to help manage wholesale power costs or address severe temperature concerns.
“To help relieve demands on our system, we could use this system to send out and ask customers to voluntarily adjust their thermostat a couple of degrees and hold off on washing clothes and dishes during peak demand periods,” Varnadore said.
In addition to the benefits texting has yielded on the electric side, Rock Hill has experienced important gains on the water side, which has over 38,000 customers. If the utility’s CIS software system, which is integrated with Arcos TextPower, detects continuous water usage, it texts customers automatically to alert them of a potential leak. This can conserve water and save customers money.
“Rock Hill is one of our customers that has successfully implemented Arcos TextPower across multiple departments,” said Dee Glander, product manager at Arcos TextPower. “When they first started leak detection, I was very impressed with how quickly they were able to quantify the water savings related to alerting customers about potential water leaks. The utility sends 2,000 to 3,000 messages a month to customers on the water side alone,” she said. “By reaching customers early and often, Rock Hill was able to reduce water loss more quickly, turning proactive messaging into meaningful cost savings.”
Leak detection isn’t the only way Rock Hill’s water department is benefiting from texting. Recently, the utility upgraded some of its major water lines and had to communicate planned outages related to that work. With texting, Rock Hill can share that information with customers ahead of time so they can plan accordingly. Customers are more likely to remember and prepare for planned outages if they have the utility's text messages on their phones.
“This improves on the old approach. If a customer receives a phone call, they may have been unable to write down information about the notice, including the date and time,” Varnadore said. “They can glance back at the text to remind themselves.”
Boil-water and water-quality notifications have also become an important part of Rock Hill’s texting.
The utility sends about two boil-water notifications a week to affected customers. To work on the lines, the utility often has to depressurize the lines, which could potentially lead to water contamination. Those notifications target the people affected, not everyone who obtains water from Rock Hill.
“If the utility tests the water after a line has been depressurized and finds contamination, it would issue boil-water warnings,” Varnadore said. “If water in a line has been deemed safe to drink after a boil-water notice, customers are also notified via text.”
Communicating with customers about longer water outages is also critical.
Within months of implementing text notifications, the utility lost the water supply line to its Water Treatment Plant. This resulted in the main water plant going off-line, and customers across the city lost service. That affected 38,000 water customers, plus wholesale water customers from neighboring communities.
Rock Hill texted the 35,000 water customers who were opted into the Arcos TextPower platform, informing them of the outage.
“With texting, we could blast these messages out, get them out to our customers and to the wholesale customers," Varnadore said. “This was a major deal because it was the main line. We knew it would not be a quick repair, but we were able to get that information out and get ahead of it.”
In addition to Rock Hill’s Electric and Water Departments, the Sanitation Division uses texting. It notifies customers of garbage route changes or schedule changes due to holidays.
To make that process as smooth as possible, Rock Hill worked with Arcos TextPower to create customer groups based on their pickup day.
“Now you can grab just a specific group and send them a message to say, ‘Your garbage service is going to be delayed until the following day,’” Varnadore said.
In addition to Electric, Water and Sanitation, the City’s Public Works, Housing & Neighborhood Services, and Development Services Departments utilize text messaging. Glander noted that once a city is enrolled in Arcos TextPower, any department can use it.
Rock Hill’s Public Works Department uses texting to communicate recycling standards. About twice a year, Public Works sends out messages to reinforce what items can be placed in recycling bins.
The City’s Housing & Neighborhood Services Department occasionally uses texting to send information to a neighborhood about community events. If there’s a neighborhood or city-wide emergency, Arcos TextPower could be used to send out information to the community.
“The City’s Development Services Department is also setup to use the texting system to schedule meetings and confirm appointments, helping to improve efficiencies when scheduled appointments don’t occur,” Varnadore said.
Looking to the future, Rock Hill is considering using texting for billing reminders and payment arrangements. For example, the utility could use texting to notify customers that their bills are past due or to warn them about impending power shutoffs due to nonpayment.
Another texting option the city may use in the future is to notify customers when they have reached a chosen threshold for water or electricity use.
In the future, the utility would also like to receive photos via text, from customers.
If a lineman is in the field, they could look into the utility’s outage management system and see a picture, associated with a specific incident. The image might provide clarity on whether an incident should be investigated by the utility or another organization. For example, a photo might indicate a problem with a phone line rather than a power line. Rock Hill could then refer it to the phone company rather than sending out its own truck.
“We initiate a lot of truck rolls for calls that are not a City issue,” Varnadore said. “We’re trying to figure out how to work pictures into our outage management system.”
On the Public Works side, customers could text the city photos of potholes and missing street signs.
As it expands its texting, Rock Hill tries to balance sending critical messages with attempts to ensure the utility doesn’t overwhelm customers with texts.
“We have always said that we do not want to overutilize the system, or use it for things that are going to cause people to opt out,” Varnadore said. “But in an emergency situation, this is our quickest means to get critical information out to all of our impacted customers.”
For additional details about Arcos communication solutions, go to the company’s website.
