DTE outsourcing jobs

[Homer]

I just wrote a big check to DTE for gas and electric and mailed it to Cincinnati, Ohio. Why can't they process their bills in Detroit? I'm sure there is space for a billing center and capable folks to be employed in our city.

[MikeM]

Would you prefer that they spend more on their own processing center and cover the cost by increasing your rates?

[Detroitnerd]

Would you prefer that they spend more on their own processing center and cover the cost by increasing your rates?

Or we could just nationalize the energy sector. That way we could take profit out of it and pass those savings on to the citizen.

[Mikeg]

There's already a whole thread on this subject from just two months ago: DTE Energy billing

[rb336]

They did do their billing out of detroit until, oh, the same time they shut all the service centers, which was a year after having RECORD PROFITS and then asking for, and getting, a big honking increase in the recovery charge from the useless rubber-stamp utilities commission

[Mikeg]

Or we could just nationalize the energy sector. That way we could take profit out of it....

......not to mention the reliability of service.

[Meddle]

Old news.

Be happy they're not sending the bill processing to Pakistan.

[Meddle]

Seems like it would be simple for the Clowncil to pass an ordinance requiring any company providing utility services inside the city to have customer service offices inside the city or face an annual penalty of say $1,000,000 for each year an office doesn't exist.

[Detroitnerd]

......not to mention the reliability of service.

Right. Like I never come home and find my DTE-powered alarm clock blinking noon at me.

[tvaspen]

Would you prefer that they spend more on their own processing center and cover the cost by increasing your rates?

For an extra buck or two a month, yes. Wouldn't you?

[Detroitnerd]

For an extra buck or two a month, yes. Wouldn't you?

Nah. Prolly one of those types who would sacrifice every U.S. production job for one slightly cheaper gizmo from China.

[jcole]

I don't care where they have their billing centers; I just wish they could keep my power on when it's sunny and warm out. I had three outages in two weeks last month and two of them were on clear days. And not just for a minute or two. Several hours once and a day the other time. The third time was storm related and we were out almost two days

[rb336]

Or we could just nationalize the energy sector. That way we could take profit out of it....

......not to mention the reliability of service.

There have been numerous studies regarding reliability of utilities. Guess what? the community-owned utilities come out on top. Same for customer satisfaction.

[Hermod]

All is not rosy on the gummint front either. When I worked for the Army as a civil servant, our commanding general got more and more irritated as the errors and lack of service by our servicing finance office at Buzzard's Point [[just south of Ft McNair in DC). He finally came to the conclusion that they were terminally incompetent and that no action on his part was likely to cause them to change. When our status changed from an "activity" to a "command" he put out feelers to other finance offices in the US. An army finance center in St Louis gave him the best offer. We sent a daily overnight mail of paperwork to them and got a daily overnight mail back. Turnaround time on travel vouchers and reimbursement for travel dropped from a month to a week. Finance office in Buzzard's Point lost ten per cent of their positions and had to do a RIF. Finance office in St Louis gained spaces and hired new people.

[Gistok]

There's already a whole thread on this subject from just two months ago: DTE Energy billing

And I started another thread on the same subject in 2009....

[MikeM]

Or we could just nationalize the energy sector. That way we could take profit out of it and pass those savings on to the citizen.

And outsource even more jobs.

http://ir.53.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=727...9186&highlight

http://www.intelligentutility.com/ar...-organizations

[Detroitnerd]

And outsource even more jobs.

http://ir.53.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=727...9186&highlight

http://www.intelligentutility.com/ar...-organizations

Ooh, some press releases. Wow. You can Google too? That's amazing.

MikeM, all I'm saying is that these important public utilities should be owned by the people, by America. Why do you hate America?

[MikeM]

The press releases are for Homer because apparently he couldn't Google.

[Patrick]

Yerah, it is better than sending it to India or some other country.

[LodgeDodger]

I don't care where they have their billing centers; I just wish they could keep my power on when it's sunny and warm out. I had three outages in two weeks last month and two of them were on clear days. And not just for a minute or two. Several hours once and a day the other time. The third time was storm related and we were out almost two days

About four years ago, we had the same problem. I wrote a letter to DTE and received a great response. They assigned an engineer to our neighborhood who checked for power events. He found we'd had a large amount of failures and he promised to check into the problems. He would send me an email every week or so with an update. By summer's end, the problem had been taken care of. I can't complain about the service, as they took care of our neighborhood's problems. Perhaps a letter would do same for you?

[Mikeg]

There have been numerous studies regarding reliability of utilities. Guess what? the community-owned utilities come out on top. Same for customer satisfaction.

Guess what? You're comparing apples with oranges. Community-owned utilities do not have anywhere near the number of customers and size of service area as DTE. Nationalizing the utilities would take it even further in the wrong direction. But thanks for making my point!

About four years ago, we had the same problem. I wrote a letter to DTE and received a great response......... I can't complain about the service, as they took care of our neighborhood's problems.

Nationalize the utilities and Detroitnerd and everyone else would eventually be writing those letters to their congress-persons office - good luck with that!

[jiminnm]

MikeM, all I'm saying is that these important public utilities should be owned by the people, by America. Why do you hate America?

I haven't checked lately, but I expect 90-95% of DTE stock is owned by Americans.

[Det_ard]

Or we could just nationalize the energy sector. That way we could take profit out of it and pass those savings on to the citizen.

Why not nationalize all economic activity? That's the dream of petty dictators worldwide. Look at the stellar results. Nirvana, your name is North Korea.

Nationalization = inefficient kleptocracy. Sure, let's put Kwame and the DPS board in charge of the whole economy.

[mwilbert]

I'm not in favor of nationalizing utilities, but the TVA has been pretty successful by and large. And of course there are many successful muni power companies. The one I have personal experience with has the lowest rates in its state and also the best service. Of course that doesn't mean there aren't be bad ones too, just that it isn't inevitable. There are also bad public utilities.

One thing to keep in mind is that despite some deregulation, the delivery of electricity to your home is a monopoly. If the service is bad you can't switch to another transmission company, and that is a situation where some kind of public provision may make sense.

[Goose]

NATIONALIZE

can't do any better for travel than Amtrack

and as far as a sustainable business, the Postal Service is A#1

and when I retire I know social security will be there for me to cover most of my retirement needs