Greenville Utilities Commission (GUC) is preparing to conduct its natural gas pipeline safety survey. Normally conducted by phone, GUC is moving the survey to an all-digital, online survey.
“The survey is federally-required for natural gas utilities to evaluate the effectiveness of their gas safety education efforts,” said Assistant Director of Gas Systems Durk Tyson. “Other utilities across the country have reported success making the move to all-digital surveys, citing greater participation and lower costs. We’re hoping we can do the same.”
Communications Manager / Public Information Officer Steve Hawley said, “We’ve seen a shift in our customers’ communications preferences from phone calls to emails and texts. This survey is an effort to reach out to our customers the way they prefer.”
GUC customers, even those who are not natural gas customers, will receive an email or a text with information about and a link to the survey. Hawley said, “It’s important for us to reach gas and non-gas customers as natural gas pipelines are underground, and part of our education program lets everyone know how to identify and respond to a natural gas leak.”
Customers who do not have an email or cell phone registered with GUC will receive a phone call, asking them to take the survey on the website, guc.com. There will even be a link to the survey on GUC’s social media sites.
Customers will be asked for their zip code in order to verify they live in GUC’s service area, but that information will not be used to identify any person’s responses.
The survey is normally conducted every four years, but this year would be year three so as to avoid doing a survey in the same year as GUC’s customer satisfaction survey.