customer service representative

sales executive

Piedmont Natural Gas

I used to hear so many good things about the way Piedmont Natural Gas treated their employees, and unfortunately that was NOT my experience while I worked at the company.

Everything at Piedmont is about who you know and who you are "cool with". You start to notice that some of the laziest people are the ones who get promotions and leniency from management while they micromanage you and constantly question what you are doing. Comments and concerns always fell on dead ears when talking to my supervisor or the project director regarding one of our team members not doing their job on multiple occasions because management had a personal relationship with the employee. The director told me "I don't get involved with that." when I tried to speak with them about my concerns and it was ultimately made clear the expectation was for me to just deal with it.

The pay was decent at first, but management changed the original job description and added a list of responsibilities that seemed to grow every week with no change in pay. The work environment is not my cup of tea. What good is it being in a big, fancy building when majority of the people there have bad attitudes and walk around with their nose in the air all day?  I started to find myself crying before work and hating the idea of clocking in. 

My manager would make me feel like I was imagining things when I would express concerns about the workload unfairly falling on me due to our team member's lack of work ethic, even when I provided proof of what was going on. 

Overall I would NEVER work there again. I'm happy to say I am now at a great company that actually cares about their employees and gives credit where it's due (I have been promoted and have received my first raise already in the first 6 months). Piedmont may have been a good thing at one point, but they have let Duke Energy's bad actors and bad work practices ruin the company. 

•	Responsibilities included all basic administrative functions (phone-screening, travel, supply ordering, calendaring, etc.)
•	Access to multiple email accounts used to prioritize emails & respond to those that are within the scope
•	Organized all off-site strategy sessions & travel in advance to set up & attend.  Part of the role required work with the MD of Safety & Community Relations to assist our Leadership Team with their Board roles & commitments.  
•	Facilitated any sponsorship requests, communications with other Board Members to schedule meeting & events.  Hosted 6 Red Cross Drives at Piedmont in which goals were exceeded in each drive.  
•	Worked with our MD of Technical Field Operations on Heart Walk 2012 & Piedmont exceeded its goal by $24,000.  
•	Solely responsible for the bi-weekly Utility Ops Engineering Meetings with all reports from O&M, Construction & Corporate Engineering.  Gathered information to set the agenda, follow-up on deliverables & keep a forecast of events throughout the remainder of the fiscal year.  
•	Set up meetings with outside vendors & N.C. Utility Commission visits to our corporate office, assisting & anticipating all needs during their time at Piedmont.  There are four executives assistants whom report to the EMT (Executive Management Team) work as a team to prepare for all quarterly Board, Committee & Shareholder Meetings.  
•	The role required a wide range of flexibility to provide support within all levels of the organization & within the community & the Natural Gas Industry.

Fake Management can ruin a fairly good company. Thought it would be inspiring to see people of color in managerial and supervisor roles, but don’t be fooled. They are just as manipulative  and play oblivious. 8 weeks of training from 8-5pm could’ve been cut down considering all the time we wasted and what we actually learned. There are people on the floor to help you the first week out of training, but after that you gotta call “Help line” and sometimes they don’t even wanna do their jobs, answer the phone or they give wrong information making the calls even more stressful for New hires. Pretty much you are on your own even if you go into the office instead of working from home. Management will fake like they’re busy or slide their door closed so you don’t ask them for help, but they certainly have time to be in each other’s offices laughing and gossiping. I would only recommend this as a part time job due to the lack of professionalism. Full time is not worth the stressful environment and being micromanaged. If it sounds like you hear a supervisor or anyone from workforce management calling in and pretending to be a customer, don’t be surprised especially with all this AI technology. They will test you and play with your patience. Don’t stay in CSR role too long at this company because it will eventually take a toll on your mental and emotional health. Money is not everything and you can’t get your time back. 

A typical day at usually consisted of answering incoming calls and assisted customer's regarding their bills.  I would give an explanation or breakdown of customer account activity.  I would also assist customers by taking bill payments on the phone.  Also, scheduled work orders for customer's gas equipment and turn-on or turn-off of gas service, as well as emergency service such as gas leaks.

I learned a great deal about gas lines, gas use within homes and businesses.

Management consisted of different individuals (1 Call Center Manager and 4 Supervisors) each one gave different input and guidance and taught us  a lot about customer interaction and customer care.

Hardest part of the job was dealing with an irate or angry customer and sometimes had to diffuse the anger, but usually managed to do so without escalating the call.

Most enjoyable part of the job was the learning experience of the many facets of gas production and equipment used to supply gas.  Also, enjoyed and very much miss the rapport I built with many, many customers.

First thing in the morning I would get there early and make coffee, put out cookies etc. The inspectors would arrive and hand in there inspection reports from previous day. I would go thru them and enter all production into my construction daily progress report. Then I would take all material receipts received, scan them into a folder and then file originals in a file that I kept in a filing cabinet. Any pipe or fittings received had to be kept in a folder and filed along with MTR's Heat numbers. A running footage installed had to be kept up with and pipe and material used had to be documented also. Welders certifications had to be kept on file, along with welding inspectors daily report on cut outs and bad welds per x-ray documentation. Surveyors turned in location of pipe installed per joint numbers. All of this had to be filed and all information had to be down loaded on to a thumb drive once a week. All MSDS material had to be in a separate book and accessible to all. Environmental had to be kept in a separate book and it also had to be accessible. I enjoyed working with and around this type of work, as I learned a lot about gas pipe lines. One thing I liked about this job is that you meet people from all parts of the country.

PNG is very cut throat, they give you 3 weeks of training with the bare minimum information and make you just figure it out all the while complaining about AHT. There are great supervisors to reach out to and there are also supervisors that are not very helpful and very slow at responding, and then complaining about your AHT. It’s very stressful, especially in the colder months when bills increase and you have very rude customers and very slow help to get the things you need. The systems are ancient, it’s like coding for a PacMan game.. literally. You have to double check most of the answers you get from certain people because I’ve been told wrong and then received negative feedback from the QA agents. You definitely need to have tough skin and no anxiety to “LOVE” a  CSR position with PNG. It’s also very difficult for someone with small children as I do. I’ve had people cuss me out for just being able to faintly hear my two year old in the back ground, most of the time I use a noise cancellation program but the phone systems use your actual cell phone to work and that part just sucks. 

Well I start my day at PNG walking at 6:30am . I start at 7:00amand until 3:30pm and work Saturday from 8:00am to 5:00pm. I log in the system,check my email. log in to my telephone system. Make sure I have my screen in my PC set to take notes for calls that are in english and spanish plus sales lead and collections, billing requirement . I learn that customer are need to be treated with respect and all times given courtesy and understanding there nature of there call .With management giving us training and review it's the best way to be alert of new changes in the company. I can easy communicate with management and new ideas. With my co- works excellent communication and willing to support them. That hardest part of my job coming everyday and have a smile on my face,that why I have a mirror on my desk and look in to it and smile. The most enjoyable part of the job is when I complete that customer call and they are pleased that I listen to them and where able to solve there problem. my over all rating and A= 3.5 +

You're typical day as a technician involves you receiving orders such as turning on gas, upgrading meters and responding to leaks but be prepared to receive a ridiculous amount of work that you cannot complete in a timely manner and if you send work back work at the end of the day, it will be held above your head when you decide to apply for future positions. The managers, ssa's and dispatchers do not care about you or your well being. They will lie and manipulate you, in hopes you don't say anything and when you do, they will try to avoid accountability and shift blame. The on-call is ridiculous and you will work well over 30 hours in a single weekend and they DO NO COMPENSATE for on-call, so on the rare occasion you don't get called, you do not get paid. You'll waste a whole day or weekend by a phone and not receive compensation for it unless you get called and they have no plans of changing this as well. I assure there's better gas companies to work for and if you value your mental health and your character, you will look elsewhere.

The company is 20 plus years behind most companies.  All of Piedmont Engineering management came from smaller natural gas companies.  Most of the management weren't in engineering at their previous company.  They were either in Marketing or in some Sales position so they are not aware of good engineering technologies or engineering practices.  From their Marketing/Sales background they have a good foundation to make you think they are knowing what they are talking about, but just learn not to breath in the smoke.  If Piedmont does get a good engineer  they usually quit within the first year unless they like the work/life balance.  The place is a 40 hour work week no matter.  If you came from a different industry and they had the latest technology you can count on knowing a great deal more than your manager and his manager etc....at Piedmont.

I started out as a Customer Service Representative and later moved to the Service Scheduling department which is the same as dispatch.  Both departments required someone with experience working in a fast paced atmosphere, taking calls, customer service.  Attention to detail was a must.  Writing reports, light sales were also a requirement.  As a dispatcher we had to do research when an emergency work order came down.  We were required to give it to the nearest technician but we had to research what that technician was doing before giving him the order.  We had to rearrange and distribute work orders for our assigned areas in a fashion that will avoid having the technician make unnecessary travel.  Working together was a must so the team became very close.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Customer service representative 3 salaries reported	$19.67 per hour
Sales executive 1 salary reported	$17.00 per hour

Working at Piedmont Natural Gas: Company Overview and Reviews

Piedmont Natural Gas

Piedmont Natural Gas Ratings

Popular jobs at Piedmont Natural Gas

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected