Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

A couple weeks ago I wrote about SaskTel’s ExpessLink, which is a telephone system to pay Sask[Tel, Power, Energy] bills and order Sasktel services. I like its ability to work over the phone, and I control how much and exactly when my chequing account is raided by the crown utilities. SaskPower until just a few months ago, did not have an online billing option, or well publicized online/telephone payment system.

I spoke with Sherry at SaskPower, and she had to admit that until I made an inquiry about ExpressLink, she was not familiar with it at all. In fact, during my interview with her, she mistakenly referred to it by another name once. SaskPower has an agreement with Energy and Tel to wire money to the right Crown when a customer makes a payment to another Crown utility on their behalf. This is why ExpressLink works at all for making SaskPower payments, but it’s entirely administered by SaskTel. This shows that SaskTel needs to train their customer support staff better on the features of ExpressLink, since they are sending people on a wild goose chase by directing people to call SaskPower when they have questions about ExpressLink SaskPower payments or account numbers.

SaskPower’s My Power Account is their long awaited online system to deal with the problem of paper bills. Unfortunately it doesn’t address the benefit of ExpressLink where you can avoid automated debit (which can sometimes rob you blind at inconvenient times). However, you do have the nifty feature of comparing power usage over different months, and viewing your bills online.

Sherry said she’d educate her staff better as to what ExpressLink is, so the ball’s in SaskTel’s court now to stop misdirecting customers who are looking for ExpressLink help.