Wednesday December 17, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 1:30 pm | Updated 1:47 pm]
Business analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
READER COMMENTS may be emailed to letters@islandsocialtrends.com
BC Hydro is busy with many important projects including the urgent response to supporting the economic growth of BC’s economy — electricity is key to most aspects of modern business and daily life.
Underpinning that — as for any major service or utility — is the need for effective and reliable customer service.
Customer service is essential in terms of dealing with power outage restoration. But also in the administrative area like customer billing.
Perhaps because BC Hydro is the primary electrification game in town (i.e. this province), it’s understandable that maintaining front line customer service to individual customers might slip from being seen as a top priority.
But the sentiment of customer frustration can fester, and for a public-serving utility it seems unwise to let basic elements of customer service fall noticeably short of basic functionality let alone a standard for achieving excellence or at least best practice.
Crown corporation:
British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority aka BC Hydro is a provincial Crown corporation owned by the government and the people of British Columbia.
BC Hydro lists their values as:
- We are safe.
- We are here for our customers.
- We act with integrity and respect.
- We are one team.
- We are forward thinking
- We include everyone.
The Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions is responsible for BC Hydro but seems to take a hands-off approach to advising the utility in its work at the customer service level.
Paper vs digital:
On residential customer billings there is a phone number to call for customer service. Yes, we’re referring to paper billings.
This is a basic billing information page. On the BC Hydro customer online billing interface (once logged in) the phone number is not readily presented on any of the main pages.
It’s likely that BC Hydro — like many businesses today — wants to push as much customer interface as possible to be conducted online. That is very likely perceived as a cost-saving and perhaps as more valuable (in terms of data analysis).
Voice contact:
However, for customers who have questions about their bill or need to sort out payment arrangements or disconnection scenarios, contact by phone is still how many customers will expect or need to discuss all that.
Yet the 1 800 BCHYDRO number (i.e. 1-800-224-9376) is found in small print at the bottom of the paper billing, further below a pitch to go paperless.
And when that customer service line is called, there is no keypad option, only voice. The voice-only option can be a challenge for anyone hard-of-hearing or who is multi-tasking in a busy day, or who would prefer the efficiency and privacy of keying in a number instead of guessing the required format of things like birthdate verification.
As mundane as that might sound, a live call that requires real-time attention. With no prompts or examples given for the voice-format entries, in some cases the call gets to the wrong department or even gets disconnected. The customer’s time in dealing with all this is valuable.
This challenging interface with the voice contact system is like battering down a door just to get basic customer service. Why phone? That’s sometimes easier for explaining unique circumstances or there may be inability to access the online portal for some reason.
The present setup of the phone-in number seems to cover what Island Social Trends calls the “Four I’s”:
- inefficient (no voice commands are given, sometimes leading to the call being disconnected if the right format is not correctly guessed),
- insufficient (time waster for people figuring out how to get through),
- inappropriate (no privacy if using voice, and perhaps a person’s voice level is not easily processed by the system for technical or voice ability reasons) for, and
- inadequate (substandard service level for a provincial-level utility).
The voice-only setup has been in place for at least a couple of years now, possibly frustrating and failing a lot of customers. If the goal is to encourage people to shift to using the MyHydro account login, it’s a presumptive and disrespectful way to do that — not everyone achieves success with specific billing requests online, and it’s a bullish way to herd customers away from ‘costly’ people at the other end of a phone line.
All of this puts a heavy load on the customer who — likely through no fault of their own — is struggling with bill payment in a time of high unaffordability.
Timeline on adding the keypad option:
We asked BC Hydro as to upgrading the customer service phone line to include a keypad option, given that that the voice-only option offers numerous points of failure. Their response: “We are always taking feedback on our phone system and we’re always working towards make improvements that better support our customers. We appreciate your feedback in this matter. We’ve shared it with the appropriate team for consideration in our ongoing and future system improvements.”
A few years ago, the response to this longstanding question was “we use an out of province voice system developer” — as if that should explain or justify insufficiencies.
BC Hydro says it provides “multiple ways to reach us, including phone, live chat, and online services“. While this might seem customer-friendly, any online interface requires more attention and decision-making than making a phone call; this is a economy-shift shift to pushing work onto the consumer/customer instead of bearing costs (worker time) in-house,
“We continually review our phone system and appreciate feedback to help us improve accessibility and ease of use,” says BC Hydro in a statement. “Your comments have been shared with the appropriate team for consideration in ongoing and future improvements,” said BC Hydro in a recent statement to Island Social Trends.
Computer programming:
Anyone who has taken even a basic course in coding will know that the solution to BC Hydro’s processing of payment-arrival dates is an easy fix.
Yet when it comes to processing deferred payments, no attention has been paid to how incoming payments can be processed more succedsfully.
Notably, if a payment doesn’t arrive at BC Hydro on the precise date required of a payment arrangement, the payment is not seen in a way as to prevent disconnection — including if the payment is made ahead of schedule by a dutiful customer.
- That’s a simple one .. code the system so that an expected specified payment amount is recognized “on or before” the target date.
- Especially if a customer is using web-banking to make their payments, it’s like a game of whack-a-mole to get the payment to arrive on the date that BC Hydro’s system will recognize it as valid.
We did ask BC Hydro about this. We explained that if a payment arrange *is* kept – in fact, by paying a day or two early – the current system doesn’t see the payment (and will still threaten a disconnect).
BC Hydro replied in a way that lays blame on the customer rather then their current manner of billing management: “Catch-up payment installments are scheduled by the customer, and it is their responsibility to make payments on the agreed dates. If a payment is made outside the scheduled plan and another amount is owing, such as a new invoice, the payment may be applied to the outstanding invoice instead. This is why we recommend customers either make their catch-up plan payment on the scheduled date or contact us so we can update their catch-up plan dates.”
BC Hydro also said this, which reveals a setup of their billing system that could be remedied if there’s a desire to fix it: “If a customer pays a scheduled catch-up plan amount early or late, and there is no other outstanding balance, the payment will be applied as intended and there is no issue. However, if there is an additional outstanding balance outside of the catch-up plan, we recommend that the customer either make the payment on the scheduled date that they set for themselves or contact us to adjust the payment date, so it better aligns with their payment schedule.”
Payment Arrangements:
BC Hydro says it offers flexible options for customers who need extra time to pay their bill.
Details are available at BCHydro.com by searching “trouble paying”. Customers can set up arrangements by:
- Starting a live chat
- Calling our Customer Care team
- Logging into their MyHydro online account
There are two types of payment arrangements:
- Catch-up plans: A series of scheduled payments on agreed dates. These plans do not incur late payment charges as long as payments are made as scheduled. If a payment is missed or not paid in full, the plan ends and late payment charges apply.
- Deferrals: Postpone payment to a later date. Deferrals may incur late payment charges.
BC Hydro says that if a customer needs to change a scheduled payment date: “We recommend contacting us by phone, live chat, or through MyHydro so we can update the plan. Payments made outside the scheduled dates may be applied to other outstanding balances, which is why keeping the plan updated is important.”
However, that loops back to the challenges of a phone call getting through at all, given the voice-option challenges. Yes, sometimes voice is more efficient than struggling with today’s level of ‘live chat’ (based on the use of AI which still produces errors or lacks enough facility to produce intelligent results).
“We understand the importance of clear and convenient payment options and appreciate feedback on how these processes can be improved. This feedback has been shared with our team for consideration,” BC Hydro wrote to Island Social Trends.
Customer Service teams:
BC Hydro does seem to have a focus on developing customer service teams.
There are two BC Hydro customer service centres: one in Vancouver and one in Kelowna.
Continual in-house training is provided. Wages start at $18.96/hour plus the 17.58% in lieu of benefits and paid time off ($22.29 total/hr) with shift premiums for evenings.
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