customer service representative

project manager

senior engineer

engineer

senior project manager

Duke Energy

Depending on your shift you may have an 8-5... being it either an 8 hour or 10 hour day. Again depending on your shift you may work M-F or have days off during the week. If you're not so lucky or if you actually want it. There are Saturday hours as well. You will learn all about the electric utility industry as a base rep. The shame of the call center is, as a base rep you are timed on every call. It is quite difficult to maintain good call times do the extreme variation of call types you may receive. There are very few departmentalized calls. You will take the brunt of aggravated customers who call in. You will be expected to take the abuse of the customer and manage the call "quality" in a professional manor. Unless the customer asks for a supervisor repeatedly you cannot transfer the call. If you get the opportunity to advance, I recommend leaving the call center for another department. 

There are a small handful of base reps that have stayed in the call center or with Duke Energy more than a few years. If you have the opportunity to sit by or near one, I suggest you soak up their skills by listening to a few calls. The Call Center has a "help tool" that is a real joke, in at least the antiquated version that they use. The system called  "RoboHelp". If you are not familiar with the program / system, it allows you to create a searchable database of information. Similar to wikipedia but with less... However the department that updates this does a horrible job of staying current and adding extra tags (searchable words). Most of this failure is due to the lack of communication between departments. You will likely have to search a half dozen times before you find what you are looking for. 

Management can be quite questionable at best. A few of the Call Center managers I would consider excellent to work under but the majority are no qualified or lack considerable skills to function in such a role, I do not say this lightly. Not one of the managers will back you in you suggestions, review of changes to policy or processes unless it benefits them in some way. Even if you are correct. If you are not friends or family of these managers you will not advance through the call center ladder or even out of the department unless you work very hard and play politics. If you share ideas, make sure it is with a large group and already have some backing. Otherwise someone will champion your ideas / suggestions and take all the credit. With Duke it pays to keep your mouth shut and go with the flow, no matter how bad it gets. The management makes a point to pry into your personal life, be it with questionnaires they call "getting to know you" or by conversations they or their "ears" have with you. Nothing you say or do at work or outside of work will go unseen or heard. 

You will take a large amount of training before starting and during your term of employment. Most of the training you take while working will be work related, ethics and skills to name a few. You will retake yearly the majority of this training.

The hardest part of this job will be actually doing what is needed to help each customer. Do not go out of your way to help a customer... If you do you will either get a pat on the back or written up... There is no grey area. It is at the discretion of management and depends on their mood or what is the general consensus at the time. 

The most enjoyable part of the job, hands down, is helping the elderly customers and those customers who will welcome your assistance. You will no doubt hear it in their voice when they praise you.

Unfortunately, Duke Energy is not a very well liked company and, as such, working for them, in any capacity, will mark you as public enemy number one; so much so that when we were given free t-shirts with the company logo on them, we were advised to not wear them in public as employees were being targeted.  There are customers that have no issue with the company but the job requirements, generally, do not have you interacting with this customer base.  On average, 86% of all customer interactions are negative.  You will be screamed at.  You will be called names.  Your life will be threatened.  The bottom line is, you must have a very healthy self esteem to work here.  Mandatory overtime is almost constant, especially during the summer.  You can anticipate to work over time, at least every single Monday.  Twelve to fourteen hour shifts, sometimes weeks at a time, are not unheard of during major storm situations.  Metric requirements are generally unreasonable.  You have a scheduled break time but if the current customer interaction you are working on carries over into that break, you are expected to lose your break.  Any attempt to take your break outside of said time is penalized.  In addition to the basic job expectations, there is a minimum sales requirement.  Even though it is not strictly enforced, you will be looked down upon and made to feel less than everyone else as your short-comings are announced to your entire team.  The company is non-union.  A recent attempt to unionize was met with several meetings filled with fear-mongering and no union representation.  Opportunities for advancement are available and strictly within the company.  Consideration for these opportunities, however, is roughly ten percent skill level and ninety percent who you know.  Favoritism is, for lack of a better term, out of control at Duke Energy.  
This all being said, there are some positives to this company, and I always believe in ending on a positive.  Generally, the direct and local management are good, positive people, willing to help when and where they can. During extensive times of mandatory overtime, you can expect to be fed (very well, I may add) by the company.  If you are good at pushing sales, compensation is very rewarding.  It is not unheard of for employees to make an extra $500.00+ per month just on sales.  Duke Energy's community outreach program is great.  This is the side of the company that the media rarely highlights, which is a shame because they really are doing some great things and if more people were aware of this, the customer interactions may not be so negative.  
Overall, for me, the negatives far outweigh the positives and I would be remiss to suggest this job to anyone I know.  It takes a very special individual to work here and not be emotionally and mentally scarred.  This is evidenced by their constantly revolving door of employees.  If you are good at sales and have a very healthy self esteem, then the compensation is worth it.  Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Lots of micromanagement in the call center. Penalized for smallest mistakes and not answering questions in a scripted way. Poor communication call volume is extremely high training is decent but not all encompassing. Supervisors seem to have favorites. Vendor reps are not fully trained which puts more strain on company reps. Real micromanagement. I would be on phone with customer and management would live listen and be talking to me and same time I’m talking to customer. Company pushed for sales above customer satisfaction. Customer always came second upselling them. Only a favorite if you’re making sales. We were told a lot in training to not burn bridges because you never know who will be your manager etc. The customers are rude most of the time and the job is constantly stressful. Good things are in the area of Charlotte nc pay is higher than most call centers starting full time $ 17 a hour. Benefits are good. You get about 80 hrs of sick time but can’t go over 56 hrs. You are penalized if you do. You also get Pto and 2 personal days but it takes a lot to use them. vacation time is 40 hrs you have to bid during vacation bid. Company match 401k 6%. Sti bonus at the
End of each year is great this year we received 2500.00 bonus on top of our pay for customer service reps. Quarterly incentives for good attendance & quality are great also. I received 300$ for good attendance. The cons is the work life balance. You have to be on call during storms you could receive text/call on your day off and be out and about with family and are expected to come in. Also MANAGEMENT omg as I said previously you are MICROMANAGED!!!!! 1 of the main reasons I recently resigned! Will try to call you on teams in the middle of your calls. During calls will send you messages interrupting you, but want you off call in a certain timeframe. Sales ! Sales! Sales! No matter if customer’s experiencing outage want you to offer their surge protection or home owner plans what person without lights you know is thinking about adding another bill to their monthly bill!? Definitely favorites especially if you’re meeting sales for the month! Otherwise you’re told your performance is lacking. You could be a great customer service representative providing customers excellent customer service and experience and will be told you’re not doing a good job if you don’t make a sale. Management / customer service lead seem to get upset if you don’t reach out to ask questions all the time but from what I seen every time someone have a question they’re told to refer to the source (knowledge center) . Pretty easy job once you learn processes not challenging and  redundant tasks. Working remotely right now but have received numerous emails about returning in office and management will send you to work in office if they consider your performance low-(not making sales) 

After working for several large energy corporations, I was surprised by the unorganized and top heavy structure at Duke.  There are heaps of middle management employees who are not accountable for any meaningful deliverables, but track other people’s work metrics and host meetings.  I was surprised the company also engaged in over reporting in many instances when it wasn’t legally required, the management thought it enriched the relationship with the regulator by showing transparency but I think it just made us look ignorant of the rules and was a bad corporate policy.  Management does not hold poor performance accountable and does not reward high performance which is why I left.  It appears corporate is out of touch with what actually goes on and middle management is always trying to make themselves relevant while taking credit for other people’s work.  Duke was always looking to cut costs and it was overwhelming obvious which employees don’t add value, yet they always looked towards the union employees and generating stations when that should be the last place to look since they are actually making the electricity.  Duke should reorganize and streamline all their support departments.  If they hired qualified staff and rewarded high performance, and held poor performance accountable they wouldn’t need teams of “experts” for oversight.  Management had less experience and technical knowledge than the staff.  The employee portal website is a mess and a spaghetti of junk that cannot be easily searched.  

Completed 3 co-op rotations at Duke in their environmental department with a focus on air emissions. Looking back on my co-op rotations I would have benefited more by co-oping at more of an industrial setting however these rotations helped sharpen my soft skills which are very important. Working in a cubical all week long and staring a computer screen can be dull but I kept myself amused with all of the reporting projects I was given. Nearly all of my coworkers were stationed outside of Cincinnati and our team communicated remotely. However, each and everyone one of the team members were extremely friendly and helpful. I felt I was excellently treated and appreciated which made going to work that much more enjoyable. However, the real base fundamentals of the job were just number crunching and spreadsheet analysis and not any real engineering work. I never had the opportunity to connect anything that I learned in the class room. While working in this role I got a real taste for what environmental work was really like. I learned quite a bit about all of the regulations that both state and federal government impose on any entity that releases anything into the environment. I experienced first hand the kind of rigorous detail utility companies have to provide in order to prove that their power plants and emission sources are in spec with both federal and state regulations.

Unfortunately, with the merger, unexperienced mangement has been moved into positions of power over people.  The policies make it impossible to do anything about abusive management, bullies, or outright jerks (especially in IT).  It is currently impossible for employees to get away from these individuals (policy that people cannot work for anyone other than their current managers) or do anything about them (ethics hotline does not answer or return eMail, phone calls, etc. and HR essentially is nothing except a phone maze to providers).  Employees of some managers are ordered to be in their chair in their cube 10 to 16 hours a day with 1/2 hour mandatory lunch, weekends, evenings, vacations, holidays, etc. and to be on call 24 hours a day (and respond to all requests within 15 minutes) or be fired.  The culture from the CIO down is toxic at this time and has been heading in that direction for years.  Additionally, it is next to impossible to get another job in the Charlotte area because practically every consulting firm has someone placed here and will not even talk to you unless you leave first.  Management is very confrontational and work in a blame oriented environment.  It is rather sad that this utility believes it is 'too large to fail, too arrogant to care, and too important to be touched either internally or by the law (yes employees are ordered to bill their time to capital projects they do not work on so the company can recover the costs from the ratepayers and then told to lie about it if they get caught).

Working for Duke Energy, they have a corporate culture that will never change. And I'm talking about the permanent employees. I was a contractor, and everyday you dealt with attitude, disrespect, etc on all phone calls. I spoke with Engineers, System Administrators, Architects, etc that didn't even know how to turn on their laptops. These people were making 6 figures and up. And us on the help desk were getting pennies an hour. Duke Energy has a culture that they treat the help desk as slaves. Oh sure when we were on site (before Covid 19) they would buy food for lunch, but it was only to keep people working. There was an employees there, that got caught playing video games onsite, and they are still employed because of nepotism (Father is an Executive).
WE call that white privilege. If you want to become permanent with Duke Energy, good luck. Seriously either if you have family (Nepotism seems to fly with this company), or someone that has known you that can pull you in. Besides that, you will never become permanent. Duke Energy will work you like a dog. At $20/ an hour you will do phone calls, chats and emails all at the same time. Interesting the starting rate in Washington DC is $25/ an hour for basic help desk, Tier One. Duke Energy taught me that even in this current time, their culture will not change and its almost like picking cotton. Apply if you want to for the EHD Help desk. I'm just giving you a warning and the truth.

Duke Energy has been a great company for me to work at as a co-op through college and now as a full time engineer.  Work/life balance and benefits at the company are the best of the best, but salary/compensation is beginning to lag the industry which is disappointing.  While the benefits are significantly above average, I believe the compensation is now slightly below average, at least as an engineer or technical based career.  In general over the last 5 years the company has really cut costs and slimmed their workforce, and part of that can be seen in compensation packages.  All the management I have dealt with have been great and support my growth, but you can tell management is extremely restricted in what they can do regarding promotions and pay increases.  You tend to see promotions every 2 years with a 3% cost of living raise every year, no matter your performance or responsibility.  While these consistent pay raises are nice,  it is also a disappointing concept since there is not much incentive to truly excel at your job, knowing it likely will not change your career growth as it relates to promotion and pay.  Overall I think Duke Energy is a great company to work at with hard to beat benefits and pay overall, but there are definitely better opportunities at other Fortune 100 companies as it relates to engineering/technology roles.

Management is awful and sneaky. A lot of drama and talking about other employees with employees. Unprofessional. I feel like they do the bare minimum to keep you going. The company itself does just enough to make you want to stay even though the job is horrible. Extremely micromanaged like no other, constantly on your back about minimal things. You’re constantly busy and when there is a rare opportunity to have a small break between calls management is once again on your neck about something you can’t even control. Zero empathy. Almost impossible to use PTO unless you request months in advance. There was a time my grandmother was sick and needed my help, simply leaving early one afternoon was a major inconvenience. Mind you, it was mid week-not a busy day and my supervisor wouldn’t let me use PTO. Co workers are racist to the point that it’s disturbing. Not being from the area, you just have to sit there uncomfortably and control your mouth. They also expect you to get to work early and check work orders before clocking in. They don’t give you even 5 minutes a day to complete work orders or make call backs. It’s very rare for a supervisor to call in a segment unless it’s for technical difficulties and even then it’s a huge inconvenience even if it’s out of your control. Bottom line...I can say well over a handful of cons about this place and not many positive things.

It was a typical call center setting.  We were seated in personal and shared cubicles that contained our own computer station and telephone.  We answered inbound calls from customers who had questions about their billing, wanted help in understanding their billing or just wanted to disconnect, connect or transfer their electric services.  I learned how to be a more patient and understanding person when it came to dealing with the public.  I learned the basics of office works, i.e. copier, fax, filing, Microsoft, typing, etc.  My co-workers were all phenomenal people and we helped each other make it through the difficult type of customer calls.  The hardest part of the job was having to take so many "bad" calls, or complaints about the company, being called everything but our names and just having to grin and bear it so-to-speak, but we all pushed through it and we persevered.  Also having to work or go into work during inclement weather on dangerous road conditions, was not very enjoyable either.  The most enjoyable part of the job was when we were allowed "offline" or off the phone time to do more clerical work, and also the pay was enjoyable as well and benefits that the company offered.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Customer service representative 6 salaries reported	$17.92 per hour
Project manager 5 salaries reported	$113,400 per year
Senior engineer 4 salaries reported	$117,250 per year
Engineer 4 salaries reported	$90,591 per year
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