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Copperas Cove contract with Fathom could strain city budget

When Copperas Cove began working with Fathom for water utility service in April 2017, customer billing issues began almost immediately.

When Copperas Cove began working with Fathom for water utility service in April 2017, customer billing issues began almost immediately.

The company, which is an outsourced water billing department, didn’t always have correct customer data from the city and made multiple billing errors-- even when it had the correct information.

While the company was dealing with those difficulties, the city of Copperas Cove was facing its own problems.

The city struggled to keep up with connect and disconnect orders and sometimes installed meters incorrectly. Interim City Manager Ryan Haverlah has been working with Fathom for two years to correct the issues.

Haverlah said the city of Copperas Cove only had two technicians in the field to read meters, connect or disconnect customers. 

They hired a third technician in March and said they plan to hire another to help complete those tasks.

Fathom also changed their customer service structure, providing a group of service representatives called a “pod” that would work on Cove-specific issues.

As those issues are corrected, another problem could soon take its place. 

Haverlah said the city’s contract with Fathom covers a limited amount of monthly customer service calls. 

The city has exceeded those calls every month, but Fathom had not charged them because of the many service issues. 

With an average 2,800 calls a month from customers to the call center, the city of Copperas Cove may have to pay for around half of those calls in the future at $10 per call.

Haverlah said he is currently working with Fathom on ways to get that call volume reduced.

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