Been working with the same TVA billing analyst for three years on various client accounts here in East Tennessee. She's always been responsive and helpful with tariff interpretations and demand adjustments. Last month I submitted a routine Schedule GSA-3 billing inquiry and haven't heard back in 4 weeks. Two follow-up emails ignored. Anyone else seeing this kind of stonewalling from TVA lately? Wondering if there's been some internal policy change or if I somehow stepped on toes without realizing it. This silence is really hurting my client relationships.
TVA rep suddenly stonewalling after 3 years of cooperation?
Terry - I've noticed MLGW billing staff getting more tight-lipped this year too. Word is there's been pressure from higher-ups to limit external communications after some auditor got too aggressive with media contacts. Maybe TVA got similar marching orders? Have you tried calling the main customer service line instead of your usual contact? Sometimes going through official channels breaks the ice again.
Could be vacation or personnel changes. Nashville Electric had three different reps rotate through my main contact's position last year during maternity leave. Each one had to start from scratch understanding the billing history. Try reaching out to a supervisor - sometimes the individual rep is just swamped and a gentle escalation gets things moving.
Had this exact situation with FirstEnergy in Youngstown two years ago. Turned out my contact got promoted and forgot to hand off my files. New person didn't know the history and was afraid to make decisions. Took a face-to-face meeting at their offices to rebuild the relationship. Sometimes you have to invest the time to reset things properly.
Duke Energy Carolinas went through this phase around 2010 where they basically stopped responding to third-party auditors completely. Lasted about 6 months before customer complaints forced them to change course. The key was getting clients to call directly and specifically request their billing rep work with their chosen auditor. Customer pressure works better than auditor pressure.
Update from Terry - called the TVA main line and got transferred to a different analyst. Turns out my usual contact left the company in September and nobody updated the email routing. New person was super helpful and already working through my backlog. Crisis averted! Thanks for the advice everyone.
This is why I always try to cultivate relationships with 2-3 people in each utility's billing department. Redundancy saves your bacon when stuff like this happens. Glad you got it sorted out Terry.