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El Paso, TX, USA, July 13, 2022 -- Many El Paso Water customers are hanging up before they are able to speak with a customer service representative, according to to call logs.

Data from El Paso Water showed the abandoned calls in May and part of June were due to long wait times.

The utility explained staff shortages are affecting the amount of calls representatives are actually able to answer.

The call logs for the months of May and part of June showed the utility received more than 1,000 calls a day.

However, many of those calls went unanswered, with several customers hanging up after waiting for an average of nearly 30 minutes.

According to the data from El Paso Water, there were less than 20 employees working at the call center in May and June.

Marcela Navarrete, the vice president of strategic financial and management services for El Paso Water said the utility is aware of the issue.

The call logs for May show there were an average of 17 employees manning the call center, which received more than 27,110 calls that month.

Of those calls, 13,624 were answered and 13,486 were abandoned by the customer after an average of 28 minutes of waiting.

Navarrete explained, "we have anywhere from 15 to 17 call takers at any given point in time, which is about half of what we should have answering our customer phone calls."

Navarrete said there is also an increase in calls, likely due to the utility's new online portal, which updated its 20-year-old billing system and gave all El Paso Water customers a new account number.

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Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: https://kfoxtv.com

Date Posted: Thursday, July 14, 2022