Xcel Energy Faces Increased Scrutiny from PUC Over Customer Service and Outage Issues

Xcel Energy is currently facing increased scrutiny from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) as part of a performance oversight effort.

The PUC has requested detailed data from Xcel following reports of issues such as customer service call disconnections, failure to send bills, and ongoing outages in certain regions. The goal is to gather information necessary to establish emergency regulations that will hold Xcel accountable for addressing these problems moving forward.

Recently, the PUC discovered that Xcel automatically disconnected around 100,000 customer calls after callers selected the option indicating their issue was non-emergency. The commission noted that this represented roughly 10% of incoming calls. An Xcel spokesperson clarified to 9NEWS that out of five million calls received last year, only about 2% (or 100,000 calls) were disconnected to prioritize emergency responses. 

Commissioner Tom Plant expressed some frustration with the current process, stating, “In some ways I feel like maybe we're kind of playing a game of whack-a-mole. Complaints come in, we open a docket, investigate, then another complaint appears, and we repeat the process.” He emphasized that the PUC cannot impose fines or sanctions without clear rules and expectations in place.

To address these issues, the commissioners are considering developing emergency regulations related to customer service, billing errors, and outages. However, these rules would take months to implement, as Xcel must first submit quarterly internal reports on automatic call disconnections, billing issues, staffing levels at customer service centers, and outage logs. Once the data is collected, the PUC will draft, debate, and establish the new regulations.

Commissioner Megan Gilman raised a pertinent concern about the competency of customer service representatives, asking, “Do we have people who are knowledgeable enough and empowered to solve problems so that customers aren’t left to advocate for themselves endlessly?”

Currently, Xcel faces a penalty structure for poor call response times—if they do not answer at least 70% of calls within 45 seconds, they face fines. Last year, Xcel answered only 45% of calls within that timeframe and will therefore issue refunds totaling $1.67 million, averaging about $1.04 per affected customer.