No Power, No Food, No Help: Puerto Rico’s Energy Crisis Isn’t Just A Customer Service Failure, It’s a Public Safety and Health Emergency

As the island of Puerto Rico mourns the five year anniversary of Hurricane Maria’s landfall this month, all 1.5 million of its residents are rebounding from being left without electricity once again. In the aftermath of category 1 Hurricane Fiona, residents are finding themselves in much the same circumstance as they were in September of 2017, and with no assistance from the electricity company managing the country’s energy grid. 

While residents in major cities from San Juan to Ponce have more immediate access to generators and solar-powered energy alternatives, many residents in remote and southern parts of the island are faced with no stable electricity alternative and major flooding that has left homes and roads destroyed. The severity of the circumstances may sound foreign to mainland U.S. residents, but for those living on the island year-round, loss of electricity is commonplace even without a major storm. But now, customer concerns regarding the standing scarcity of energy and emergency resources has created a crisis that extends well beyond the basic need for good service. On the island, requesting good customer service from companies is no longer a standard practice, it is a radical act of life-saving social advocacy. 

When It Comes To Claiming Customer Centricity, Major Companies Are Failing

Following international news coverage of the devastation brought about by Hurricane Maria in September of 2017, global awareness of the U.S. commonwealth's unsecure energy grid increased, as did calls for better emergency response. People were left without power by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) for 11 months following the natural disaster in 2017, and the circumstances have since been exacerbated: over the past five years, power outages have become a part of daily life for Puerto Ricans. And now, the 3,515 mile land mass is faced with rebuilding post-Fiona, when it hasn’t truly ever been “rebuilt” post-Maria.

Puerto Rico’s electrical supply currently comes from LUMA, a private electric company which was contracted to join PREPA as an electric distributor in June of 2021 to address the issues residents noted during and following the massive tropical storm. Currently, PREPA’s sole responsibility on the island is electricity generation, while LUMA oversees transmission and distribution. Per LUMA’s website, the company describes itself as a customer centric company “driven by a mission to transform the electrical transmission and distribution system to provide all Puerto Ricans with the reliable, resilient, cleaner, and affordable electrical grid they deserve.”

The pressure has been on since LUMA was awarded a 15 year contract to recontrust and upgrade the island's energy grid, but since then, customer satisfaction has steadily decreased. An average household in Puerto Rico utilizes 800 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month on the island, and while the mainland U.S. cost is 15 cents per kwh, it is a hefty 34 cents for those on the island. Electric bills totaling over $200 per month in an area where 43 percent of residents live below the poverty line. This switch promised to provide more efficient, cost effective service to residents, but the reality has been anything but customer centric: ​​residents are not only subject to frequent rate hikes, chronic power outages as well.  

In Times of Crisis Omnichannel Communication Is A Myth And Self-Service Is The Fallback

Puerto Rico’s electrical issue has escalated to such an extent that electrical failure by PREPA and now LUMA are woefully embedded in local Puerto Rican culture. Over the past five years, residents and high profile Puerto Rican celebrities have posted videos, written essays, created social content and have even protested in the streets risking abuse and arrest, calling for politicians and energy companies to be held responsible for the constantly crashing energy grid.

In fact Bad Bunny, who wrote a song calling for action title “El Apagon” which translates to ”the blackout,” notes that his home of Puerto Rico is the only place in the world where he has to supply the arena with multiple backup generators because he doesn't trust the island’s electricity supply. This month, he produced a 22 minute documentary music video for the song, calling on the island’s government and LUMA energy to address residents’ urgent needs. The video depicts what daily life looks like amid these constant power outages–being unable to bathe infants, study, work, keep food refrigerated, shower, or even the ability for senior citizens to utilize essential at-home medical equipment in intense heat.

The circumstances in Puerto Rico are nothing short of a customer service emergency, say Sofia and Claudia Rólon, sisters who live on the island and currently attend university. “People are anxious and have PTSD about past events… It’s so sad that barely five years ago, on these same dates, a lot of Puerto Ricans suffered Hurricane Maria. And now they are going through the same or worse…People have lost food, houses, clothing, cars, even family,” the sisters tell CCW Digital.

With No Action And No Empathy, Customers Feel Abandoned By Not Just Companies, But Their Peers

Like many other Puerto Ricans post-Maria, the sisters believe that neither the government nor LUMA will efficiently respond to their requests. In moments of uncertainty and grief, they have hoped that electricity companies would empathize with their needs and respond with care to these urgent issues. Especially considering that many of PREPA and LUMA’s employees live on the island proper and are subject to the same emergency circumstances as their peers, it feels at times as if there is a radical disconnect between customers and agents, who at times are one in the same. 

On days where a natural disaster is not impending, residents still face no power, disconnected phone lines, ignored DMs and Tweets, and radio silence. So when inclement weather is at play, there exists resentment among those on the island. As a result, they’ve taken to self-servicing and relying on grassroots organizing where businesses and governments composed of fellow citizens have failed to meet their needs. “There’s still good neighbors, family members, acquaintances and strangers that are willing to help other people in need. Here where we live, thankfully we just don’t have electricity,” they note. “But what other people are going through, which we see in pictures and videos in the south, it’s horrible… and not everything has been recorded. Not everyone has been helped, and not everyone has been rescued.”

Both companies have failed to facilitate a reliable power grid and provide a customer service experience that can meet the everyday basic needs of Puerto Ricans. To keep power running is more than ample reason to have a strong customer service effort in place. Just as handheld products break and need replacing or re-adjustments, electricity systems require the same amount of maintenance and attention to detail, if not more. Ensuring that same level of customer care and diligence will not only provide customers safety, but cultivate trust and build lasting relationships between consumers and organizations.

Customer Service Agents Are Overwhelmed–By Customer Concerns and Poor Company Culture

PREPA and LUMA’s failure to provide urgent assistance over the years is directly correlated to its workforce size and customer service volume. When PREPA, a government-owned company, failed to provide adequate emergency response post-Maria, the company faced bankruptcy. Thousands of workers either lost their jobs or transferred to other government departments as LUMA’s involvement decreased.

Many PREPA workers decided not to join LUMA citing poor working conditions and employee benefits, while others made the switch and joined the company’s 3,000 person workforce. However, with a population of 1.5 million and down power lines across the country, employees are faced with connectivity and availability issues. In fact, upon calling LUMA’s customer service line, you will receive an automated messaging system that prompts you to press 1 for your own account, 2 if calling on behalf of someone else, and 3 for a current list of known outages. CCW Digital tried all options and received no response–only a repetition of the main menu options. Moreover, the automated voice message also notes that any other customer support tools that do not concern power outages are currently suspended for the time being, so that agents may be able to respond to more pressing requests. Even so, emergency response is slow.

What PREPA and LUMA face is a circular customer service failure. The more customers are left without power, the less customers can call in to report outages. The less customers call in to report outages, the less customer service agents can provide solutions. While residents of Puerto Rico take to the internet and the streets as last resorts, the clock is ticking in terms of how long phones, portable batteries, solar power packs, car engines and generators will stay running in order to facilitate communication. As of September 23, 1 million residents remain without power. One week later, nearly 350,000 people are still waiting for their lights to turn on. One Puerto Rican reporter living on the island described a saddening scene following the storm:

“All of Puerto Rico lost power last Sunday.. People have died because of generators exploding or their house catching fire due to candles. Some supermarkets will have to shut down because they're running out of fuel… LUMA Energy (the private company that took over distribution of energy in PR) is facing accusations that they lack the personnel to inspect power lines and that’s delaying restoration.”

With No Options For Better Service, Is There A Light At The End Of The Tunnel?

A hallmark of good customer service is understanding consumer concerns and being able to empathize with them in a way that builds agent/client relationships and facilitates adequate problem solving. But after half a decade of broken promises, companies and customer service agents in Puerto Rico don’t stand a chance. In 2020, following a series of earthquakes that left Puerto Ricans in similar circumstances across the island, I spoke with a grassroots organizer who shared this sentiment with me: “We keep us safe… We take care of each other.”

In terms of failures by electricity companies to supply residents with power in a timely fashion, that statement still rings true.The majority of Puerto Ricans–both on the island and on the mainland–express a general distrust towards the companies contracted to provide resolutions. In fact, locals are urging those who want to support relief efforts not to mail goods or donate funds to large companies. Instead, they are recommending good samaritans send their funds to grassroots organizations that have a more direct connection to the Puerto Rican community.

When we think of the “customer service industry,” many of us envision products, goods, services and experiences. For the most part, as consumers, we can opt to receive those things from a multitude of other vendors if one is not able to suit our needs. But in the case of Puerto Rico’s energy crisis, good customer service is more than a 50% coupon, a refund for a lost package, or switching to the competitor. Good customer service is being able to take a shower, charge your cell phone, and drink milk that isn’t spoiled. There are no other options for residents to choose from in order to get electricity to homes, schools, offices, stores and hospitals. In fact, they are at the mercy of two companies that even when they join forces, lack the bandwidth to address a national emergency. And at this moment, residents feel forced to accept that there will be more failures from both energy companies in the not too distant future. For now, the Rolón sisters have just one message: “The south of Puerto Rico is literally covered in water. Please pray for them.”

If you’d like to contribute to relief efforts in Puerto Rico, the Rolón sisters recommend donating to the following local efforts:

https://www.instagram.com/brigadasolidariadeloeste/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiqtcR8uzDq/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Note: At the time of publication, PREPA and LUMA did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash.