We’re extremely proud to recognize the people of Denver Water who work directly with our customers daily and even more so this week, National Customer Service Week, which runs Oct. 1-5.

The theme for this week — “Exceeding Expectations. Every Customer, Every time.” — is exactly what Denver Water’s customer service team members strive for every day. These are the people who are on the phones and in the field answering questions, troubleshooting issues and solving problems directly with our customers.

When our customers have issues or questions, typically the first call they make or email they send is to Denver Water’s contact center.

“Most people aren’t calling us just to tell us we’re great,” said Michelle Garfield, customer relations manager at Denver Water.

Which is why customer care representatives at Denver Water are trained to identify problems and make explanations to the customer. They’re also empowered to implement solutions. This one-stop shopping approach makes it easy for our customers to do business with us.

"People may not be happy with us when they first dial the phone, but by the end of the call, we’ve turned it around,” Garfield said. “We’re very proud of our high, consistent quality service. Our team understands their role is to solve problems and they truly want to help our customers.”

It’s clearly a successfully approach. Since 2014, the team’s customer satisfaction survey rating has been averaged a highly impressive 90 percent.

Since the contact center team is truly on the front lines with customers, they often are the first to learn about issues or problems. If there are issues the team members can’t solve or situations they can’t explain, then the call is referred to the appropriate division. Usually, that’s Denver Water’s customer service field team.

Denver Water has an entire crew of people who are in the field working with our customers. The customer service field crew is separate from teams who work on transmission or distribution pipelines.

Members of the customer service field team go onsite with customers to check water meters, verify the equipment is working properly and answer questions.

“One of the biggest opportunities for the field team is to provide customers with a better understanding of water and our system,” said John Plonsky, customer service field manager. “People often don’t understand where their water comes from and they don’t understand how that translates into water use and the volume of water recorded on their bill.”

For the entire customer service team, one of the most important tasks is educating customers about how clean, safe and reliable drinking water is provided to their home and work every day.

And customers aren’t the only ones being educated, as the contact center and field service teams gather daily metrics, data points and feedback from customers to share with other divisions within Denver Water. This information is used to help identify trends, address larger issues and determine where additional attention might be necessary.

In 2017, Denver Water’s contact center team responded to over 19,000 emails and 219,000 phone calls. They are advocates for our customers and incredibly dedicated to and passionate about providing outstanding customer service. For this, the team received a “Becoming the Best” award from Denver Water this year.

“Our teams are constantly asking the question: How do we get better?” said Garfield. “We’re looking at ways we can continue to learn and improve, such as adding online chat capabilities, which may make it easier for some of our customers to reach us.”

One of the most important things about our customer service representatives is their passion for the work. They love seeing the difference they can make and the way they’re helping our customers.

“This is a great team and they make our work fun every day,” Garfield said. “We love to see people grow professionally and have fun at their work. And we love learning new things from our customers every day.”

Customers with questions about their water service or bills can call Denver Water Customer Care at 303-893-2444 or send an email. The call center is open during regular business hours: Monday — Friday, from 7:30 a.m. — 5:30 p.m.