The Public Service Commission on Dec. 17 convened a hearing to examine customer complaints that Baltimore Gas & Electric's customer service call center has been inaccessible for many customers, particularly during a period of high billing complexity and the winter-heating season. The Consumer Affairs Division (CAD) reported it received 657 complaints against BGE from July 1 through Nov. 16, with about 22% of those complainants describing difficulty reaching the company by phone.

"In our assessment, the inaccessibility that customers are reporting isn't on any of these individual workers. Instead, this looks to be a systemic issue," CAD Director Stephanie Bolton told the commission. CAD described customers reporting long hold times, callbacks that never arrived, an automated message offering only a callback rather than the option to wait, and difficulties using online self-service. CAD asked the commission to consider requiring a service-level agreement and other corrective measures to ensure live and timely customer support.

BGE's vice president of customer operations, Steven Singh, acknowledged the problem and said the company has been addressing increased call "complexity" (more time-consuming billing and collections issues) rather than a large surge in call volume. Singh said BGE authorized 30 additional internal full-time employees for the care center (raising internal staff from 148 to 178) and planned to increase contractor resources, tune its callback technology ("mindful"), expand weekend coverage as needed, and proactively call customers who abandon calls. "We will fix it," Singh said, adding that emergency calls were not affected.

Representatives from the Office of People's Counsel recounted recent examples of customers who were unable to reach BGE to prevent disconnection or to start service and asked the commission to direct BGE to file within 15 days a public response to OPC's data requests and a corrective action plan addressing callback and call-wait times. Staff supported OPC's request, noting similar corrective-action requirements had been imposed in the past on other utilities after call-center problems.

The chair said the commission will issue a directive shortly that could require the company to provide additional information or take specific actions; commissioners emphasized immediate implementation of the staffing and technology measures BGE announced while staff and intervenors review the data BGE provided. The meeting record shows the commission expects prompt follow-up and may require reporting or metrics to monitor improvements.