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Exceeding Expectations Every Day
January 04, 2013
(Originally Published in Texas Co-op Power Magazine - January 2012)
"Exceeds expectations." My kids always combed their grade-school report cards for EEs, which signified they had attained the coveted "exceeds expectations" rating in aspects of school life that couldn't be assigned a letter grade.
As they grew, EEs turned into (we hoped) As and Bs. Yet I don't think either of them lost that desire to exceed expectations.
Medina Electric Cooperative is celebrating something very special this year; our 75th Anniversary, and throughout three quarters of a century our desire to earn EEs from you, the member, has never faultered. We don’t want to do what you only expect us to do—provide you with affordable, safe, and reliable electric service. We want to go farther and do better, from providing superior member service to offering programs that help you save time and money. That is why we take pride in our mission statement, “Exceed Member Expectations in Everything We Do.”
Medina EC lineworkers provide the public face of our mission to exceed expectations. They routinely work in rough weather and put in long hours. But they do it gladly, because they care about doing an exceptional job for you.
We also have many people behind the scenes who make our co-op the best it can be. Our engineers continually explore new technologies to improve service reliability. For instance, within the last six years, smart meters have been installed at your homes to automatically send usage reports back to our offices. Now, with today’s automated systems, meter readings are available to our customers via the Medina EC website.
Our finance department works to make bill pay easier and more convenient with programs like SmartHub. Launched last November, the application is available in both mobile apps and Web version to give members secure access to maintain their account information, view bills, see payment history, make payments on one or more accounts, set up recurring payments and report outages. You can access SmartHub by clicking ‘Pay Bill’ under ‘myACCOUNT’ on www. MedinaEC.org.
Our member services representatives want to make sure you have a positive and satisfying experience when you call our office for help. In fact, Medina EC recently partnered with the Cooperative Response Center to maintain outage dispatching on weekdays after 5:00 p.m. and on weekends.
And because we’re a cooperative, we have a special responsibility to support the communities we serve and exceed expectations there, too. That means we aim to improve the quality of life by coordinating food drives like Medina EC’s “Biggest Giver Contest,” which challenges our five district offices and General Office along with family/friends/members to raise as many food items as possible. Each office donates the canned and non-perishable food to their local food pantries. As a cooperative, we collected over 2,600 pounds of food at the end of last year’s drive.
Whether it’s a power outage or energy audit, a billing question or community event, we’re working hard to achieve those EEs from you every day. Nowadays, not too many people remember when their electric cooperative turned the lights on. Those days may be long forgotten, but in the 75 years Medina EC has been in business, we have never forgot about you—the member. So join us in celebrating this special occasion and lets look forward to another 75 years of providing so much more than the safe and reliable electricity that powers your home.
Mark Rollans
CEO
Texas Co-op Power Magazine
