Careers at BrightRidge

Date Posted: 11/11/22

BrightRidge is hiring for a full-time Customer Service Representative.

      The incumbent will work under the direction of the Customer Service Supervisor to assist BrightRidge customers face to face, over the phone, and via chat.

      The position will perform outbound calling to potential broadband customers or for upselling existing customers (could be as much as 75% of work hours each week). 

      Candidate MUST be available for after hour’s work, including Saturday, and working fair share of all necessary overtime.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS INCLUDE:

• Cross-train in all areas of Customer Service and in that capacity rotate jobs as directed.
• Assist customers utilizing established expectations face to face, over the phone, and via available customer engagement tools/technologies to include, but not limited, to chat and video engagement.
• Contact electric customers to offer broadband services by highlighting the advantages of our offerings while representing BrightRidge in a positive and professional manner in every interaction.
• Answer incoming customer calls and walk-in requests to provide assistance with signing up or modifying broadband and/or electric services.
• Perform outbound calling to potential broadband customers or for upselling existing customers. This activity could be as much as 75% of an employee’s work hours each week.
• Promote BrightRidge services such as Budget Billing, Bank Draft, Flexible Due Date, SmartHub, TALO, and Broadband.
• Be fully knowledgeable of BrightRidge Broadband services and product offerings.
• Must be able to effectively upsell broadband services and products to electric customers.
• Maintain a professional and satisfying business relationship with customers by educating them about the features and benefits of their services in an effort to retain customers.
• Convey complex situations in written form.
• Offer alternative solutions where appropriate to assist customers experiencing hardship or other difficulties.
• Respond to account and billing inquiries by identifying problems and researching answers using available resources
• Apply company policies, directives, and procedures to resolve routine issues.
• Assist customers with payment arrangements, new service, transfers, disconnects, new construction, commercial accounts, load control, and broadband
• Accurately enter all information in the CIS system to provide seamless customer experience through documenting call details and new account information into the computer system and completing any forms required to request action by other departments
• Sit at a computer while completing various office tasks throughout the day.
• Meet effective performance standards.
• Ability to maintain reliable, predictable, and reasonable attendance.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Attends meetings, seminars, schools, or training, etc., as determined by Supervisor or as required by law.
• Must demonstrate and convey support in the CS Quality Program and Standard of Behavior and other initiatives desired for BrightRidge.
• Must maintain a valid drivers’ license from state of residence.
• Perform other duties as requested or assigned.
• Must be available for after hour’s work, including Saturday, which would include outbound calling to market broadband services and working fair share of all necessary overtime

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with both internal (other employees) and external (agencies, credit bureau, etc.) customers.
• Ability to work well under pressure and remain calm and professional through stressful or ambiguous situations in order to objectively interpret information.
• Ability to work independently to resolve customer inquiries, problems, or complaints.
• Must be able to identify and understand issues, problems, and opportunities to determine effective course of action and appropriate solution.
• Must possess a high standard level of Customer Service for both face-to-face and telephone interactions. 
• Must have the ability to communicate clearly and positively both orally and in writing.
• Must have the ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment and function as a team member aligning professional objectives with the team’s performance and organizational goals.
• Must possess strong P/C skills and be competent with common operating systems such as Windows 10, IOS 8, etc.
• Must be able to use knowledge-based and proprietary techniques to resolve a customer’s technical issue in a timely and cost-effective manner.
• Must have strong memory recall and the ability to multi-task.
• Must be able to relate to all socioeconomic levels of people.
• Must be able to operate a calculator.
• Must know and understand service policies and practices of BrightRidge.
• Must possess strong face-to-face communications skills.
• Must know the principles of effective telephone communication.
• Must display a high degree of honesty, loyalty, and integrity.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

 All work requires constant telephone and computer use which entails sitting for long periods of time, reaching, handling, fingering, feeling, fine manipulation, vision, talking, hearing and arm/hand use for machine control operation.  Occasional lifting of no more than 10 pounds. 

WORKING CONDITIONS:

Work is performed in an indoor climate-controlled office environment with appropriate lighting.  Normal working hours may extend to 8:00 pm Monday through Friday and include hours from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturdays.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• High school diploma or equivalent required.
• One year prior experience in a Customer Service/Technical Support position preferred. 

Only qualified applicants are considered. 

Applications must be completed by Friday, November 25 at 5:00 PM. 

EEO/M/F/TNDFWP/VETS

BrightRidge wishes to be in full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  In accordance with the Act, we will make reasonable accommodation to any person who needs such accommodation, whether a new hire or a current employee, assuming that the person is fully qualified for the position.

These essential job functions are not to be construed as a complete statement of all duties performed.  Since jobs tend to change over time, employees will be required to perform other job related marginal duties as required without a formal update of the job description.

Date Posted: 11/04/22

JOB SUMMARY:                                                          

Provide leadership and direction to the work completed by the control center that ensures a safe working environment for service and construction crews, internal and contracted. Responsible for providing operational oversight of the transmission and distribution system including restoration to maintain reliable operation of the electrical grid. Develop programs, processes, and practices that expand services offered by the control center that improve reliability, resiliency, real time monitoring, and safety for field personnel. Responsible for overseeing, reviewing, training, directing, and implementing the expansion of control center capabilities and its staff.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

• Assist Chief Operations Officer with establishing strategic goals, long-term objectives, and short-term priorities of the department.
• Develop and monitor control center departmental budgets.
• Oversee, monitor, and recommend departmental personnel management including hiring, discipline, and performance evaluation of assigned employees.
• Lead employees of the control center by communicating, coaching, and motivating.
• Provide direction, mentoring, and coaching to trainees, control room operators, and support personnel to maximize productivity and teamwork.
• Encourage employee growth and development in everyday work by providing learning opportunities and an environment that encourages growth.
• Plan, develop, and conduct comprehensive training programs that include scenario, remedial, and on the job training with Mapwise, OMS, SCADA, Tantalus, and NexTraq and other such programs for control center employees.
• Develop test scenarios to be utilized in training and requalifying control room operators.
• Minimize the scope and duration of scheduled/unscheduled outages by providing support for outage occurrences by balancing company and customer needs.
• Develop, present, and suggest new methods to operate the power system more effectively and economically.
• On request, prepare technical reports to summarize system disturbances, and economic cost benefit analysis while detailing more efficient operating methods. Share reports with COO and CEO.
• Quarterly, analyze operating information to determine reliability indices. Compare power system reliability with forecast estimates and national standards. Share reports with the COO and CEO.
• Coordinate with engineering department to develop and maintain alarm limit values in all systems for operational parameters that safely monitor the system. Annually review such values with the COO and Chief Engineering Officer.
• Develop, train, implement, and maintain programs, processes, and procedures that expand services offered by the control center. These programs shall improve reliability, real time monitoring, and safety for field personnel. This list of suggestions will expand as the industry advances:
• Real time monitoring of distribution and transmission system devices
• Real time monitoring of power flow at delivery points and distribution substations
• TALO and DERMS system events for demand response
• Root cause analysis and sequence of events during outages
• Load forecasting at system and sub-system level
• Procedures during automation events
• Continuous substation camera monitoring
• Asset health/asset management
• DMS/ADMS
• Grid analytics
• Coordinate with engineering department on system planning projects to meet system operating objectives of the control center through effective and safe implementation.
• Ability to maintain reliable, predictable, and reasonable attendance.
• Read one-line diagrams for distribution and transmission system.
• Write switching orders to swap load on system for balance, maintenance, and emergency response that meets lockout/tagout procedures as defined by the APPA safety manual
• Dispatch crews as needed.

 ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Must maintain a valid driver’s license from the state of residence.
• Must be available for after-hours work which would include working fair share of all necessary overtime.
• Assist in Control Room during emergency situations.
• Maintain assigned vehicle.
• Perform role as on-call supervisor as scheduled on a rotating basis; available for call-in whenever needed.
• Perform other duties as requested or assigned by Administration.

 KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Ability to effectively manage change as the organization implements new procedures, processes, and programs.
• Ability to think ahead and plan within timelines and resources; develop scopes, plan, and schedule work; set priorities and goals; anticipate and adjust for problems; evaluate workloads; measure and evaluate performance against established goals.
• Ability to analyze problems and develop effective solutions at both strategic and functional levels.
• Must maintain competency in the study, design, construction, and operation of all aspects concerning the electric utility industry.
• Working knowledge of transmission and distribution relaying, breaker and recloser functions, distribution automation protection schemes, and FLISR.
• Broad technical background with extensive experience in distribution engineering, system analysis, protective relay coordination, programming, and troubleshooting.
• Must be able to read, interpret, and convey details of schematic diagrams.
• Ability to distinguish full range of colors in order to be successful with completing duties involving the use of computer displays to monitor color-coded diagrams.
• Must have a good geographical knowledge of the service area.
• Must be able to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
• Knowledge of modern training and safety practices.
• Proficient with Microsoft office products, WindMil, LightTable, AutoCAD, and all BrightRidge in-house programs used by the Control Room which include but are not limited to: SCADA, OMS, Tantalus, MDM, Mapwise, and Nextraq.
• Willing to take additional training as needed.
• Demonstrate behavior consistent with BrightRidge’s culture in the spirit and core values of technical competency, respect and dignity, accountability, integrity, trustworthiness, and servant leadership to empower or otherwise enable others to optimally perform their job responsibilities.
• Demonstrate and promote ethics and behaviors consistent with BrightRidge's culture, Board policies, and business practices. Understand and fulfill the role and responsibility for all compliance.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

 The position requires constant vision and sitting.  Frequent handling, talking, hearing, depth perception, and arm/hand machine control operation is required. Approximately 10% of this position’s time is spent outside observing and studying operations of utility personnel to improve functions of the control center.  Employee may be required to ambulate on uneven terrain.

 WORKING CONDITIONS:

 Generally, work is performed in an indoor temperature-controlled office environment with appropriate lighting. 

 QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering or similar degree required with an advanced degree preferred.
• 5 to 7 years of electric utility experience with a significant background in distribution engineering that includes progressively responsible engineering, operations, planning, and design knowledge.
• 10+ years of industry specific experience may substitute for education.
• Demonstrated leadership abilities managing teams of diverse skill sets with experience developing team competency.
• Excellent oral and written communication, customer facing, people management skills.
• Comprehensive knowledge of electric utility responsibilities including engineering, operations, metering, customer service, accounting, and control center functions.  

 QUALIFIED APPLICANTS MUST SUBMIT AN APPLICATION BY NOVEMBER 25, 2022.

BrightRidge wishes to be in full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  In accordance with the Act, we will make reasonable accommodation to any person who needs such accommodation, whether a new hire or a current employee, assuming that the person is fully qualified for the position.

 These essential job functions are not to be construed as a complete statement of all duties performed.  Since jobs tend to change over time, Employees will be required to perform other job-related marginal duties as required without a formal update of the job description.