First Choice Power opens storefront office

TEXAS CITY — When it comes to taking care of her electric bill, Sandy Rozell prefers a human face to a voice on the phone.

“I hate that where everything gets done is on the phone,” she said. “I don’t know where that person is or if they are really listening to me.”

Rozell is one of the state’s 8 million or so electric customers, who, for the most part, have to deal with their billing and service questions online or by phone.

Until now.

Because she is a First Choice Power customer, Rozell can actually stop in a storefront office to pay her bill, adjust her service or simply gripe to a human instead of a faceless customer service representative over the phone.

Two months ago, First Choice, the retail electric company arm of what was once Texas-New Mexico Power Co., opened a full-service storefront office in Texas City.

It is believed that office and another in Lewisville are the only full-service retail offices for an electrical provider in the state.

Reliant Energy, one of the state’s largest retail providers with 1.5 million customers, does not have full-service centers like First Choice has opened, but spokeswoman Chevalier Mayes said the company has a 24-hour customer service line as well as a live online chat service through the company website.

Reliant also has 2,800 outlets — mostly at grocery stores — for customers to pay their bills.

But for customers wanting the face-to-face contact, First Choice’s concept is unique.

The opening of the store is a throwback to the pre-electrical deregulation days when power companies had service offices in almost every city, including on the corner of Ninth Avenue and Ninth Street in Texas City.

“Anything you can do with one of our call centers you can take care of in this office,” Gabe Sims, the manager of First Choice Power’s Texas City office, said. “Our company took a step back and took a look at the industry (and) took a look at what consumers were saying.

“Overwhelmingly, we heard from people that they wanted better service. People in our areas told us they wanted face-to-face. The contrast of going from face-to-face to the Internet and the phone was something people didn’t like.”

Which might, in part, explain why First Choice Power ranks in the top five in complaints filed with the Public Utility Commission.

According to data from The Public Utility Commission, the state agency that has some limited regulatory authority over retail electric providers, of the 2,892 complaints filed with the commission between May and November 143 were about First Choice Power. That is only 4 percent of the complaints filed in a six-month period. TXU Energy accounted for 1,031 of the complaints in the same time frame.

Alvin Stevenson, 74, of La Marque, stopped into the office in the Tradewinds Shopping Center on Ninth Avenue at 21st Street because his electric bill took a big jump even as temperatures in the area cooled down.

“I tried to handle this over the phone, but it became so frustrating,” Stevenson said. “(A First Choice representative) took care to what I needed and she gave me the explanation of what happened.”

It turns out that when his electric meter was read during the summer, the technicians from Texas-New Mexico Power Co. — which still control the power lines in the community — under reported Stevenson’s power usage.

When the error was caught, the company corrected the figures, which meant Stevenson’s bill went up to make up for what had been misread months earlier.

State regulations allow the power companies to adjust misread meter readings and adjust a customer’s power usage.

That’s something Stevenson didn’t know before meeting with a customer service representative at First Choice’s Texas City office.

Even a decade after electric deregulation, many people don’t understand the difference between retail electric companies like First Choice, Reliant and Direct Energy and the electrical providers which include TXU, CenterPoint and Texas-New Mexico Power Co., which generate the power and maintain the poles and wires that send the electricity to customers.

There are 40 retail electric providers operating in Texas, according to the Public Utility Commission’s Power to Choose website. All purchase their electricity from the electrical providers.

“This industry in itself is very complicated,” Sims said. “It seems simple, you turn on your lights, you pay your bill. You call and your power is turned on. But it is complicated. The interaction between the retail providers, the consumers and the poles and wire company, (the state); it’s complicated.”

Stevenson didn’t get the answer he wanted to hear but was more at ease that, by meeting face-to-face, at least someone was there to listen and explain.

“It’s a lot more than I ever got over the phone,” Stevenson said.