Austin Energy details resolutions to issues with customer communication
Austin Energy sent a memo to Austin leaders providing them with resolutions to issues relating to communications with customers during long-duration power outage events following the December Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee Meeting.
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Austin Energy sent a memo to Austin leaders providing them with resolutions to issues relating to communications with customers during long-duration power outage events following the December Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee Meeting.
The Austin City Council directed Austin Energy to address the following specifically:
- Improvements to the outage map;
- Whether the outage map can handle heavy usage;
- Whether customers experiencing a long-duration outage will receive text updates; and
- What communications customers can expect during a long-duration outage event.
Austin Energy said it continually works with the vendor, KUBRA, to make improvements to the outage map and texting system. The utility detailed the following outage map and communications improvements during a long-duration outage:
| Issue | Resolution |
| Customers received timeout messages during high-demand periods. | Scaled up to handle heavy traffic by increasing the customer data roundtrip timeout limit. Improved system capacity both in terms of handling more customer text conversations at one time as well as giving supporting Austin Energy systems more time to respond to customer requests before timing out. |
| Customers received texts that power was restored, but customers were still without power. | Updated the power restored text template to ask customers who still have an outage to re-report it. The issue could be a “nested outage” – an outage with more than one cause that the system may not see once the main cause is resolved. |
| Customers not receiving automated texts with updates during long-duration outages. | Established a cadence of manually sending up to twice-daily broadcast texts during long-duration outages to all customers without power who have registered for Outage Text Alerts. Broadcast messages will provide a general status update, not customer-specific information. |
Austin Energy said it also made the following enhancements to the outage map:
- Enhanced messaging
- Increased character limit on broadcast messages to allow Austin Energy to share more information with customers
- Improved natural language responses processed through an automated chat system to prevent the system from responding to customers with non-helpful responses.
- Customer Preferences
- Improved outage alert sign-up experience.
- Data Improvements
- Matched outage map addresses with billing system addresses.
The utility said another issue it's addressing relates to a subset of customers receiving error messages. According to Austin Energy, during the January 2024 winter weather event, when 26 customers texted “OUT,” they received an erroneous message about registration. Austin Energy said the software vendor is aware of the problem and is working on a fix.
Austin Energy said the KUBRA outage map software has a separate customer data management system to provide information about outages. About 40% of Austin Energy customers are signed up for outage text alerts.
Under normal or "blue sky" conditions, customers who are signed up for alerts will receive an automated text under the following conditions:
- At the start of an outage. Under normal conditions, an estimated time of restoration (ETR) is
calculated based on historical data and experience. - When the crew status changes.
- When an ETR changes.
- When power is restored.
We make every effort to arrive at a realistic estimated restoration time under normal conditions based on the availability of our lineworkers, the extent of the damage, and the safety of our employees and customers. During a weather event or large-scale extended outages, the ETR is suspended as the algorithm will not accurately determine the length of time to restore power. In those instances, we use other communication channels to give general system-wide restoration information, rather than customer-specific information.
Austin Energy General Manager Bob Kahn via a memo to the Austin Mayor and Council Members