News Flash

Lenexa, KS – January 5th, 2026 - WaterOne is proud to announce the launch of the WaterOne Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering a future where safe, reliable water is sustained through education, service, and community support. As part of its mission, the Foundation is introducing a $1,500 scholarship to support students pursuing STEM careers in the water sector. 

Created in 2021 as an extension of WaterOne, the Foundation engages in charitable initiatives related to public drinking water, including the promotion and advancement of education, science, and community support. The Foundation is entirely self-sustaining, relying on donations from individuals and community partners who share its vision for the future of water. 

The Foundation is governed by an appointed Board of volunteers who donate their time and resources to guide its vision and cultivate donors aligned with its mission. 

WaterOne is a public non-profit water utility committed to serving delicious, high-quality, reliable drinking water to almost half-million customers.  

For more information, to donate or to apply for the scholarship, visit WaterOneFoundation.org.  

Media Contact:Kelly FryManager – Communications/PIOkfry@waterone.org 

At its meeting on December 9th, the WaterOne Governing Board officially adopted its 2026 operating budget of $157.5 million. As a part of the budget process, the Board set water rates that will go into effect on January 1, 2026.

The planned water rate adjustment is 2.9% based on a cost of service analysis. This represents an impact of $1.65/month for the typical residential customer.

The main drivers that make an increase in 2026 necessary are increased operating expenses like labor, software, and health insurance, as well as increased capital investment in infrastructure and a gradual decline in indoor water use.

WaterOne is a non-profit public utility and is not tax supported – rates and fees are used entirely to cover the cost of daily operations and infrastructure. Because of this, WaterOne practices careful financial planning and reserve funding in order to avoid reactive rate hikes. The 2025 rate is consistent with the District’s approach to avoiding rate volatility through incremental rate adjustments. Small, stable rate increases offer predictability for those living and working in Johnson County.

On average, 50% of every rate dollar goes to daily operations and 50% goes to infrastructure investments. WaterOne’s water is an excellent value, and the District continues to offer one of the lowest rates for water service along with the highest recorded customer satisfaction in the region.

WaterOne is committed to providing the community with high-quality, safe, and great-tasting tap water. To help empower the community with knowledge about their drinking water, information about WaterOne’s water is published annually in a Water Quality Report.

WaterOne’s Water Quality Report offers customers a better understanding of the water they are drinking. Also known as a Consumer Confidence Report (CCR), this publication uses plain language to explain technical findings, making complex water quality topics accessible to all members of the community. It includes details on WaterOne’s water sources, treatment processes, volume of water produced, safety and quality benchmarks, and much more.

The 2025 Water Quality Report provides data from WaterOne’s accredited laboratory about the composition of its water in 2024. In 2024, WaterOne conducted over 13,000 tests on more than 14,000 water samples to ensure that the water meets or surpasses all water quality standards.

Paper copies of the report are available at most Johnson County Library locations and at the WaterOne Administrative Office, located at 10747 Renner Boulevard in Lenexa. To find the most recent report, download reports from previous years, and to watch an animated video explaining what these reports are all about, visit waterone.org/H2OReports.

As WaterOne rings in the new year, the organization is preparing to welcome Spring Hill customers in late January 2026, having provided wholesale water services to the area since summer 2025.

In preparation for the merger WaterOne has connected Spring Hill's water tower to WaterOne's control room and done extensive mapping of valves, hydrants, and meters.

Residents will receive notifications about the transition of services from Spring Hill to WaterOne through bill inserts, welcome letters from WaterOne in January, updates on social media, and an in-person event designed to assist customers in setting up a new online account.

For those seeking more information, WaterOne has launched an informational page for the Spring Hill merger on its website. This page features Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that contains helpful information about the transition.  

“WaterOne looks forward to serving Spring Hill and ensuring your water needs are met with the highest standards.” Says General Manager Shaun Pietig “we’re proud to be your trusted water provider.”

WaterOne is committed to being good stewards of the environment. As a part of that commitment, WaterOne's Governing Board has officially adopted a set of Sustainability Goals. The goals are a set of formal directives intended to guide the organization towards sustainable management practices in the coming years. The goals were developed based on a recent Sustainability Assessment, an in-depth research study which identified operational enhancements that balance environmental, economic, and social factors.

The newly adopted plan outlines a clear path toward achieving Net Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050, aligning WaterOne with the region as well as with leading utilities across the country. This ambitious goal reflects WaterOne’s continued dedication to sustainable practices and responsible resource management.

To ensure that sustainability remains central to future investments and strategies, these key elements will be incorporated into WaterOne's Master Plan and Annual Capital projects. This proactive approach underscores dedication to addressing climate challenges while providing high-quality water services.

Board Chair Whitney Wilson expressed gratitude for the hard work of staff and partners. “Integration of these goals into long-term planning positions WaterOne as a leader in utility sustainability and upholds the commitment to excellence for customers,” said Whitney.

WaterOne is committed to providing excellent water service, and a crucial part of this commitment is ensuring that its infrastructure remains in optimal condition. To achieve this, the district regularly inspects its transmission mains. These inspections involve both visual and acoustic checks through a dark and extremely narrow 36-inch pipe.

For the acoustic checks, Workers tap on the pipe walls and listen for hollow sounds that might indicate issues indicating that the pipe may be damaged. However, examining the cramped interior of the concrete pipe can be a challenging and time-consuming task.

In the past, workers assembled a modified garden cart to move around inside the pipe, which was cumbersome and uncomfortable. Seeing an opportunity for improvement, Distribution Technician Kevin Bolen and Fleet Mechanic Craig Griffin created a new Pipeline Inspection Cart that simplifies the inspection process. They constructed a sturdy cart from steel tubing that rolls smoothly within the pipe. The cost-effective construction includes customized wheels that accommodate the pipe’s slope and also features an adjustable boat seat for comfort inside the cramped pipe.  

Their innovative design earned them third place in the Gimmicks and Gadgets category at the American Water Works Association Water Infrastructure Conference.

"The new carts enhance our ability to perform visual and acoustic inspections more efficiently," says Kevin. "We can spend less time making adjustments to the carts or going back to retrieve tools, allowing us to focus more on the inspections."

*Intro Music*

McKenzie:

Hi Folks! I’m McKenzie VanMeerhaeghe, and this is ‘Water You Talking About?!’ A podcast brought to you by WaterOne where we talk about the ins and outs of all things water. Today Is the season 2 finale! In this episode I wanted to take a look through the season and talk about some of my favorite takeaways. Let’s dive into it!

Okay first off let’s rewind allll the way back to March – I met with Senior Financial Analyst Shane Hoffman to discuss our Annual Budgeting Process. Now I love this episode! Shane is such a great explainer when it comes to complex financial topics. Specifically, I loved to hear about what we call our Nessie Model. Let’s take a listen,

*music*

McKenzie:

Your team has also worked on developing an affordability metric that is now widely used by many organizations. Can you talk to us a little bit more about this?

Shane:

This metric was developed by Natalie Morrison and Cassandra Gunther. And so what this metric does is it measures household affordability in terms of income after basic needs. So it takes the 20th percentile income and then it strips away money that you might need for housing, for food, for health care, for taxes. And it looks at what's left over after that. And then it takes our rates as a percentage of that. It was amazing idea from Natalie and from Cassandra to work on this, because, you know, we live in a very affluent county and it would be easy for us to ignore affordability. But like so many other things we do here at WaterOne, we are trying to stay ahead of the curve. We are trying to look at things like this before it becomes a problem.

McKenzie:

That is absolutely incredible and super impressive.

*music*

Mckenzie:

My favorite thing about this moment was learning about the strides WaterOne takes to ensure affordability for our customers. Even more so – this model was created by two of our staff. It is a true testament to how much each employee cares about what we do. This affordability model is now used beyond WaterOne. Which I personally think is incredible.

Okay, moving on let’s take a look at one of the most fun episodes from this season. In May I sat down with Communications Manager Kelly Fry and Communications Specialist I Tayler Loudermill as well as Fleet Administrator Scott Bundi to talk about our Education and Outreach Programs. My favorite part about this episode is how it reflects some of our core values as an organization. Here’s a clip

*music*

Mckenzie:

So why do we prioritize outreach specifically at water one? 

Kelly:

It's actually baked into our strategic goals that guide our work every day. Goal number two is to provide excellent customer service. And one of the ways we do that is providing education and outreach through our innovative communication tools. 

Goal number seven is to be good stewards of the environment. And we do that by promoting efficient water use and fostering an educated, aware and engaged community, Connecting with our customers is important. We know folks are busy and water is often taken for granted. We want to be present at our events so our customers can come by, say hello, and just ask any water related questions they may have. 

Mckenzie:

100% water one is committed to increasing awareness about the value and quality of tap water and critical customer interests. We want our community to know that we hear them and that we care. We are a part of the community that we serve, and we are dedicated to helping make our community thrive. 

*music*

Mckenzie:

Our education and outreach program is such a pivotal part of our mission. It is yet another way WaterOne goes above and beyond to connect with and serve our community. Making sure that our community is (no pun intended) tapped into the why of water is SO important. Now this was filmed right at the kickoff of our outreach season, and now that it’s over I would love to give you an update on its impact. Over the summer we dedicated over 120 hours, reaching 60,000 people. Absolutely phenomenal. And now, Taylor has been booked and busy educating students through our education program. I can’t wait to see what 2026 has in store for Misty and the Quench Buggy!

Next up we have an episode that taught me so much about what our crews are doing out in the field. I met with Distribution Tech 2-1 Brandon Vallejos and Restoration Contract Coordinator Steven Anderson to dive into all things Main Breaks and Restoration. In this next clip we hear Brandon Break down the facts when it comes to Main breaks.

*music*

McKenzie:

Absolutely, the people here at WaterOne are amazing to work with, and it is so rewarding to be able to know that the work we do has a direct impact in our community. So let's start off with an important question. What exactly are main breaks? 

Brandon:

Main breaks are when an underground water line breaks or cracks, causing water to leak to the surface. They're caused by various reasons, like ground shifting, aging, a pipe corrosion, fluctuating water pressure. Temperature can also play a role. As well as contractor hits from them digging up with heavy equipment.  

McKenzie:

Interesting! Yeah. I hadn't thought about that part. It's so interesting to know that there can be so many different things that actually cause a main break. And although they are an inevitable part of operating a water utility, we do all we can to both prevent breaks from happening where we can and to fix them quickly when they do break. So what are the different types of main breaks? Are there different types of main breaks? 

Brandon:

Yeah. So, there's some that are called round breaks and lateral breaks. So a round break in our terms, when we're out in the field, we'll call it a shear, and then there's also the lateral, which we would call split, but they're caused by, the ground shifting. So which is more of the round break or shear? And then, lateral. That's sometimes you get like pinholes or a split that runs along the main.  

McKenzie:

For those, do they look different on the surface? I know there are some main breaks where it's just like a bubble on the top. And then there's some that shoot up really high. 

Brandon:

So like when the, the older the pipe is sometimes when there's like high water pressure it'll cause a hole to burst the water main. And so sometimes you'll see water shooting, sometimes high in the sky. Sometimes it might be like a pinhole or a small leak. And so those will cause more saturation in the ground. 

*music*

McKenzie:

Okay so, main breaks. Everyone’s Favorite thing, right?! We see the outside of a main break. I’m talking that water gushing down the road (during a morning commute, of course). But we never see the inside of a main break. What exactly is going on in there – that’s been a mystery to the public for so long. That’s what I loved so much about this clip – and this whole episode. We hear first-hand from the crews that are out there every day. Working to break down that mystery surrounding main breaks. I mean I didn’t really understand the complexity of mains and how they function until this episode.

In September I met with Elain Corbin – CS Manager, and CS Supervisors Essence Henly and Lindsay Stimatzeto discuss all things customer service. This was such a fun episode to record! These women are incredibly knowledgeable in their field, not to mention hilarious. Alight let’s listen to this clip before we dive in further

*music*

Mckenzie:

100%. Okay. If you could let our community know one thing about your work, what would it be?

Essence:

We don't just answer calls. We listen to concerns, we advocate for our customers, and we work behind the scenes to make sure that their water service is reliable and safe. And, we're responsive to their needs.

Mckenzie:

Yeah, I think something that goes unnoticed, I want to say, in customer service specifically, is the amount of technical knowledge that you have to have about the water industry and about our utility. That is a lot to know and a lot to be able to just like someone ask you a question and be able to just say, oh yeah, that's this, like you were saying earlier about our human water to like, leak detectors. That is so cool. And that is something that doesn't get seen that often, but is an incredibly useful skill to have and is super hard to gain. I feel like.

Essence:

Yeah. I always say, you know, I've always been in customer service, but I always even when interview and I always tell people like, customer service here is different than any other customer service you ever worked at. Yes. Like your skills to be empathetic and understanding and, you know, listening. But the technical knowledge is is totally different. It's not just a script you follow. It's not just push this button, push that like you literally are, almost an honorary plumbers.

*Laughter*

*music*

McKenzie:

What I really love about this clip is how to explain that Customer Service is not just phone calls, It is so much more than that.  And our reps – I mean they are absolutely incredible. The knowledge that they must have in order to do their jobs is immense. Like Essence said they are honorary plumbers.

Let’s move on to our most recent episode. In this episode I sat down with Darci Meese – Manager of legal & Gov Relations and Ellen Parker – Associate Attorney to talk about Water Law. My favorite part of this episode actually right at the start – so let’s take a listen.

*music*

Mckenzie:

Yes, it's so awesome when you can find two things that you really like and they mesh together and become a career for you. All right, so let's dive in to the subject matter. Let's get started by talking in general about WaterOne and your role and what that looks like.  

Ellen:

Well, well, one, we are a quasi municipal body corporate. So we were created by a statute back in 1957. And we say we're quasi municipal because unlike our municipal friends in cities, we only serve one public function, and that is to provide clean drinking water. Being quasi municipal means that we are subject to all the regulations. While many of the regulations that governments are think about the Open Meetings Act, the Open Records Act, So that means that, you know, everything we do here, the public could request to see our records unless there's an exemption to it. 

But we're also a business. So then all the laws that apply to a regular business apply to us. And you can think about like employment laws and stuff like that. 

Mckenzie:

Absolutely. And that was a great explanation to kind of dive into the difference between us and a city and why we fall into that quasi municipal body definition. 

Darci:

Right. And I think it's kind of important to because we go by the name of WaterOne in the community. Now, sometimes it gets a little confusing. People think we're a private water company, kind of like Missouri American water, American water. So it's really important that our employees and the public know that we are actually a governmental entity. So we function just like a city or we have a governing body, that's elected at large. So um A couple of the differences from us, though. One is that we don't have taxing authority. So, cities can tax. We don't, but we are completely nonprofit. So all of the revenue that we make has to go back into the organization. We do have the power of eminent domain. So that's where you can take property to put in your water mains. We don't use that very often, but occasionally we do. So cities also have that and one of the things that we, we also like to highlight is that our statute actually allows us to put our water mains in the public right away. So we don't necessarily need permission to put our water mains in the public right away. But we we usually try to cooperate with the cities that we serve. But as to why we need lawyers, I think, there's a lot of work. Like some people probably wonder why cities need lawyers too. But if you look around every department, Ellen and I probably have a project going on in every single department in the organization right now, in some form or another, whether it's a contractor reviewing or some sort of dispute, we're trying to help mediate through, dealing with a governing body requires lawyers to understand all the different rules and regulations that, apply to that. So there's just a whole host of different things that we get to do on a daily basis. 

*music*

McKenzie:

Okay so, this episode dives into the nitty gritty of a lot of complex topics- but this particular explanation was so enlightening for me. I loved the way Ellen took a moment to explain where WaterOne falls in the grand scheme of things. I know when I say we are a Quasi Municipal entity people always respond “huh?” It is not a common phrase and is very hard to explain at times, and I thought that she did a fantastic job of doing so. It was a total lightbulb moment for me when she was speaking!

Okay so those are my 5 favorite moments from this season. It was hard to go back and choose just five – there were so many takeaways, funny moments, and thoughtful insights this season. I can’t believe that 2025 is already ending, I had the best time sharing the ins and outs of water with you all.

Don’t worry, you aren’t done hearing from me yet! We will be back in 2026 with a whole new season of Water You Talking About. You can expect to hear more fascinating main stories, get a deep look into our involvement in Committees across America, and so much more. Do you have suggestion for us? In the description of this episode I will have a link to a survey where you can give topic suggestions, feedback, or thoughts on the season! I will also be posting the survey on Facebook so you can look for it there too. I would love to hear from you!

Speaking of Facebook, don’t forget to follow us on social media so that you can stay connected anywhere you go. We are active on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even TikTok. And please give the pod a follow on Spotify or Apple Podcast and share the it with friends and family – It is a fantastic way to help show you support!

In the meantime stay hydrated and I’ll talk to you next time on, Water You Talking About.

Mckenzie:

Hi, folks. I'm Mckenzie VanMeerhaeghe and this is Water You Talking About? A podcast brought to you by WaterOne, where we talk about the ins and outs of all things water. Today we are talking about water law. We will be learning about the basics of water and government, discuss high profile initiatives and dip our toes just a little bit into some government relations. This is going to be a very in-depth and informative episode, so let's dive into it.

Today I'm joined by Ellen Parker, who is an Associate Attorney here at WaterOne, and Darci Meese, who is the Manager of our Legal Services and Government Relations. How are you all doing today?

Darci & Ellen:

Great. Great.

Mckenzie:

All right. Let's start off with some background information. So how long have you been at water one? Let's start with you, Darci.

Darci:

I have been here for 26 years.

Mckenzie:

Can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Darci:

Sure. So I went to the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, and this was my first job out of law school. So I started working at WaterOne as a law clerk my second year of law school, I believe. And then certainly wasn't what I thought I was going to do with my my law license. But I got in here and just loved the work and loved the people. And here I am 26 years later.

Mckenzie:

Yeah! What was it about WaterOne that drew you in to work here specifically?

Darci:

the variety of things that I was exposed to, it seemed like it was more exciting than working in a law firm. I did some other internships at law firms and, for the city of Kansas City, and I just enjoyed the variety and the variety of people because I didn't want to necessarily work with people in suits all day long. So it's kind of fun to get out in the field and work with the construction folks and engineers and just keeps things interesting.

Mckenzie:

Yeah, you don't think it at first, but water is cool. Ellen how about you? How long have you been at WaterOne?

Ellen:

I just celebrated my eighth year here at WaterOne.

Mckenzie:

Wow. Congratulations. Can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Ellen:

Yep. So I studied my undergrad at KU and then went on to law school at Washburn University in Topeka. Law was not on my radar until I took a couple of classes at Ku, environmental law specifically, and business law and that's why I went to law school.

Mckenzie:

Why did you start a career here at WaterOne specifically? Was it that environmental law and goal that got you interested here?

Ellen:

Exactly. Yep. I always knew I wanted to do environmental law, so when I saw the job at WaterOne come up, I was really excited and I just feel so grateful that I actually get to do what I'm interested in, and my values align with it.

Mckenzie:

Yes, it's so awesome when you can find two things that you really like and they mesh together and become a career for you. All right, so let's dive in to the subject matter. Let's get started by talking in general about WaterOne and your role and what that looks like.

Ellen:

Well, well, one, we are a quasi municipal body corporate. So we were created by a statute back in 1957. And we say we're quasi municipal because unlike our municipal friends in cities, we only serve one public function, and that is to provide clean drinking water. Being quasi municipal means that we are subject to all the regulations. While many of the regulations that governments are think about the Open Meetings Act, the Open Records Act, So that means that, you know, everything we do here, the public could request to see our records unless there's an exemption to it.

But we're also a business. So then all the laws that apply to a regular business apply to us. And you can think about like employment laws and stuff like that.

Mckenzie:

Absolutely. And that was a great explanation to kind of dive into the difference between us and a city and why we fall into that quasi municipal body definition.

Darci:

Right. And I think it's kind of important to because we go by the name of WaterOne in the community. Now, sometimes it gets a little confusing. People think we're a private water company, kind of like Missouri American water, American water. So it's really important that our employees and the public know that we are actually a governmental entity. So we function just like a city or we have a governing body, that's elected at large. So um A couple of the differences from us, though. One is that we don't have taxing authority. So, cities can tax. We don't, but we are completely nonprofit. So all of the revenue that we make has to go back into the organization. We do have the power of eminent domain. So that's where you can take property to put in your water mains. We don't use that very often, but occasionally we do. So cities also have that and one of the things that we, we also like to highlight is that our statute actually allows us to put our water mains in the public right away. So we don't necessarily need permission to put our water mains in the public right away. But we we usually try to cooperate with the cities that we serve. But as to why we need lawyers, I think, there's a lot of work. Like some people probably wonder why cities need lawyers too. But if you look around every department, Ellen and I probably have a project going on in every single department in the organization right now, in some form or another, whether it's a contractor reviewing or some sort of dispute, we're trying to help mediate through, dealing with a governing body requires lawyers to understand all the different rules and regulations that, apply to that. So there's just a whole host of different things that we get to do on a daily basis.

McKenzie:

Yeah, you have a big, important job here. And you do touch every aspect of the business, both internally and externally.

And so to zoom in on that a little bit, let's talk about why it's important to have laws and regulations on water specifically.

Ellen:

Well, providing safe, reliable high quality water supply to our community is, at its core, a public health function. And we like to say around here a lot, you know, water is life. And so in order to make sure we meet that responsibility, the laws and regulations help us.

McKenzie:

Yeah, it's all about providing the highest quality, safest water to our community that we can. So we kind of talked about this a little bit just a second ago. But it's not just water that you guys deal with when in terms of laws So what are some other type of legal issues that come up at WaterOne?

Darci:

So essentially WaterOne is a big construction company. So we do deal with a lot of, property issue issues. We, purchase property sometimes we are trying to get easements on property for our mains in, just today I was reviewing a permit from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway to get get onto their property to do things. So we do a lot of that, construction disputes, damages that occur to our facilities out in the field or someone else's facilities. Any employment law that would apply to a business also applies to WaterOne. We have to work through those issues, helping our HR folks out with that. What else? Ellen what am I forgetting?

Ellen:

Well, we process open records requests policy. I would say we review policy that's implemented in the organization.

Darci:

And some people do wonder, do we actually go to court and we do occasionally go to court? Sometimes it's small stuff. Sometimes it's bigger stuff where we might have outside counsel firm, an insurance company helping us out, but we're pretty hands on with all that.

McKenzie:

Would it be fair to say like essentially you all are help us as a company both internally and externally, be fair, equitable and uphold ourself to the laws and regulations and ensure that we're treating everyone respectfully?

Ellen:

Oh, absolutely. And I would say that's one of my favorite things about I guess I didn't say about my background. I came straight, I guess, as Darcy did, straight in-house. And that's not a typical path for lawyers. And so I've always loved about that. Is that we have the ability to address issues before they become big issues, like my friends at law firms have to deal with things once they've gone horribly wrong sometimes. And so, yeah, it's nice to be on the front end of that. And the more legal is involved in everything, basically from the beginning, hopefully then we can help troubleshoot, issue, spot and make sure things go as smoothly as possible.

McKenzie:

Yeah, it really falls into one of WaterOne's core values of being proactive in everything we do instead of reactive. All right. So talking about laws, there are both state and federal laws that apply to WaterOne, Correct?

Ellen:

Right.

McKenzie:

Can you dive into that a little bit for us there are a lot of applicable ones, so I am sure I'm not going to get them all. But off the top of my head I'll list a few. So, I think our main federal law is the Safe Drinking Water Act. Just a little bit about that. It kind of tells us what needs to be in the water sets MCL or maximum contaminant levels, and I won't get any more into that. There's, the Water Resources Development Act or word which we follow at the federal level. In 2018, they passed the America's Water Infrastructure Act. That's just a few big federal ones. There's a Clean Water Act, of course.

Darci: 

Right. And then, I mean, going back to like the employment law, I mean, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, Civil Rights Act, all of those apply to us equally. So, There are labor standards out there.

Ellen:

Fair Labor Standards Act.

Darci:

So there are so, so we need to, you know, we we support human resources, in compliance with those laws. So really that's, that's our role is to support each department that is trying to maneuver through the different federal laws that apply to them. So the Fair Credit Reporting Act would be another one that applies I the list goes on and on. But there's some big ones, and it's difficult to be an expert in all of them. But we we try our best. So yeah.

Ellen:

And then at the state level, there's the Water Appropriations Act, which I think is how we get our water rights. The Water Resources Planning Act oh one that we deal with regularly is the Kansas underground utility Damage Prevention Act. And what that basically is, is if you've ever heard of, you know, 811 or call before you dig. So it's a requirement that anyone that's excavating in the area call us before they dig. And we're, it's actually kind of well, I don't know if it's interesting per se, but we we have tier two facilities, but we're a tier three member. And what that means is WaterOne is able to go out and like, you have to call our people, and then we go out and locate our facilities. And I think that's really great because we know where our facilities are probably better than, a subcontractor or that's a really important part of, what we do because, you know, underground facilities just bring with them a lot of.

McKenzie:

 Correct. That's a really unique kind of function that we do if I remember correct, and doing our own locates.

Darci:

Right, right. And because of the nature of some of our facilities that we've inherited over time from rural water districts that are of a nature that you can't necessarily locate with technology. Maps are only as good as the maps we received when we took over the water district, so we might not actually know where stuff's at, but our employees are better at figuring that out than a contractor would be. So we find that we have more success and we're probably more efficient, doing this, locate ourselves. So,

Ellen:

And then just a couple of rules and regulations, like the lead and copper rule, which are people are doing amazing work on that. I'm sure you could have a whole podcast on that if you want to. Your men like regulating emerging contaminants like for us.

McKenzie:

Yes. Those rules and regulations are definitely their own huge sphere.

Darci:

Probably the when we're talking about state law, the most important state law that applies to WaterOne is our own and our statute. So KSA 1930 501 so that statute, it goes from 3501 to 3522 I believe, maybe 21 I have to go back and look. But it basically lays out all the powers of WaterOne and it pulls in a lot of the other state statutes that apply to us that we have to comply with, including, the bidding requirements for our construction contracts. Our eminent domain power. So where, where it references those types of statutes, it sends us to the eminent domain statute or the competitive bidding session that applies to cities. So that's kind of neat when we're doing legal research, kind of the first thing that we do is look at our own statute and what are our specific powers.

And then we go back and we figure out what actually applies to us, because there's a whole host of statutes that apply to municipalities. Sometimes we fall into the definition of the municipality for a certain statute, and sometimes we don't, they define governmental entities differently. The Kansas Tort Claims Act is another one that's really important for us, because that provides us with immunity for things like water main breaks. If it's an act of God, we're not going to be held liable for that unless they find some sort of negligence in the Tort Claims Act also provides for, statutory limitations on how much we could be, responsible for an A and in particular situations. So, that's a really important one. When we're dealing with some sort of litigation, we go back and look and make sure that we have those protections. But it's a little bit difficult sometimes for, a customer to understand that we as a municipality do have that protection. And that's where the, understanding that we are a governmental organization is, is important because cities have the same protections.

McKenzie:

Absolutely. And is that statute available for the public to access anywhere?

Darci: 

Sure. Yeah. If you probably if you just Google the Kansas statutes, it should probably kick something up from the Kansas Legislature website or the revised website. And you can go through and kind of read the table of contents of the statutes and find those there.

McKenzie:

Perfect. And I will find a link to that, and I'll make sure to have that link in the episode description. That goes for all links and resources that we talked about throughout the episode. Do you want to talk a little bit about the history behind some of these rules and regulations?

Ellen:

I can talk about big picture like, calling back to my days at environmental studies at KU when we learned about the big environmental movement in the beginning of the 70s. That's where the EPA was created in 70, Clean Water Act in 72, Safe Drinking Water Act in 74, and a widely sort of catalyst for that was in 1969, when the Cuyahoga River in, Ohio caught fire because it was so polluted. So on the back of that and just the public environmental movement, I guess at the time, a lot of these kind of foundational environmental laws were created around that time.

McKenzie:

So what are some of the biggest conversations that are happening right now in the legal sphere? When is regarding water?

Ellen:

Well, certainly emerging contaminants, is a big topic. We're watching it and it's evolving. Then there's also cybersecurity. Another big topic, funding for infrastructure is always an issue. There are state level resources, federal level resources. And really it's all needed because infrastructure all over the country is aging. And, we're very lucky here at Water One because we have a really proactive infrastructure program and, a fantastic financial planning group. So we don't always tap into all of that funding resources, but we certainly support it.

McKenzie:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this kind of touches on an important aspect of your job that's not always at the forefront is you are constantly behind the scenes, just staying up to date on everything that's going on. Like I can imagine you guys are probably reading so much, listening to so much, talking to so many experts, just so that you can kind of keep an eye on that and keep tapped into everything going on in case it becomes really applicable to us. And you need to just jump in at a moment's notice.

Darci:

Yeah. And I think our membership in organizations like American Waterworks Association and the Metropolitan AMA and Association of Metropolitan Agencies, where we go and those are very helpful because they really are they are in DC and they're dug in on all of these regulations and as how they develop. So they do I mean, we we have very relationship with all of those organizations and have leadership roles in a lot of those organizations. So that helps us to kind of stay abreast of what is going on and what they need from us in terms of, talking with our own congressional delegation about things. So it's kind of where the line between government affairs and legal blurs a little bit, but it's being able to understand what the ask is and communicating that to our congressional delegation and working with those organizations to make sure we're being as persuasive as possible.

So, you know, for Lead and copper example, cybersecurity, as Allen said, are all things that those organizations are taking the lead, and we're right behind them providing support and examples, of how those regulations impact us as a utility.

McKenzie:

Awesome. And personally, do you either have you have a legal issue that's been like the most interesting that you've worked on while you've been here at Water one?

Ellen:

Well, the one I kind of think of is, I got to participate. So I mentioned America's Water Infrastructure Act that was passed in 2018. And so I started here in 2017 and we started working on it. I would say 2019, but it was kind of a cross divisional team. And through that, what what we had to do was basically a risk and resilience, assessment of our entire organization. So we got to look at all the facilities and what the threats were. So it's kind of broken down into two different types of threat malevolent acts. They called it. So things like attacks on the utility, both physical and cyber and then also natural disasters. So what are our biggest threats? And you think like flood, drought, tornadoes. And then, kind of analyze that and give risk scores. So we wound up with, we figured out what our biggest risks were, and it was really great learning experience for me.

But also very comforting to know what a resilient organization we are. We have a lot of redundancy. So the fact that we get our water from two water sources, the Kansas and the Missouri, the fact that we have two treatment plants. So if one were to go down, we could still operate. And then we are continuously increasing our backup like energy generation. And so as we continue with that, we're building redundancy and resiliency into everything we do. So it was cool to see that we are way ahead of the game. And, just doing great in that regard. So that was a really cool project.

McKenzie:

Yeah.

Ellen:

For a newbie.

McKenzie:

Yeah. That's incredible. It's something that as a customer of WaterOne, knowing that makes me feel a lot safer and assured to know that, like we're prepared in for many, many, many different scenarios and we have redundancies set up so that to the best of our ability, we can take care of our community when it matters most.

*Music Break*

McKenzie:

So we've established the core of water laws, water regulations and how that can impact us. Let's move on to what we do as an organization to help contribute to those. So first off, why is it even important that we're involved in these conversations?

Ellen:

Well, I always think of saying, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. We are the largest water supplier in Kansas. So it is important that our voice is at the table when policy discussions that are happening.

McKenzie:

Absolutely. We need to be considered

Ellen:

Well, and I'll also just add to that, you know, it is not just me. We really, as an organization, do a lot to share our knowledge. And that's something that I've loved just working here, seeing. And it feels like the whole water industry as a whole, like we if we learn something, we share it. We contribute to their magazine all the time. So I guess I would just add we have a ton of experts.

McKenzie:

what are you doing to make sure that we stay involved in these conversations.

Darci:

Well, we have many different staff members who are involved in many different organizations. Like we mentioned before. You know, on the government affairs level, we are kind of tapped in with the American or with the water Kansas Water Authority, I think forming relationships with agency officials and our city partners is super, super important. So, we do have close relationships with Kansas Water Office and the communications team. Everyone has relationships with them, and that helps when when you have to have a hard conversation if you already have that relationship with them. We have relationships with KDHE the Department of Health and Environment and the Department of AG. Again, helps when laws are being introduced or, something's being applied to us that we may not necessarily be a fan of.

Same holds true for our cities. And, you know, having involvement with the, City Attorney's Association is helpful. Having those relationships with others attorneys across the 13 cities that we serve, I'm sorry, 17 cities that we serve in the county, is very helpful. So I think just making sure that we're out there, we're talking to people, we participate in meetings, participate in chamber meetings, things like that.

Is is really the key to, that success that we have in the community. And then we also have some formal, positions. I'm the chair of the Kansas Regional Advisory Committee. Michelle Wirth is the chair of the Missouri Regional Advisory Committee. We have relationships with the Corps of Engineers, which is super important when it comes to either of our water sources. So just continuing to kind of be at the forefront of the industry. Sometimes we're advocating for just ourselves. Sometimes we're advocating for the entire state. Is very important.

McKenzie:

It is. And this encompasses our government relations team. The government relations team is a collaboration among our staff leaders representing WaterOne to maintain and share relationships, information and influence within local, state and federal peers and agencies, regulatory associations and similar interest groups. Government relations is a group effort and there are many individuals at water, one who perform government relations functions as a part of their work in order to help highlight this. We are going to be doing an entire episode focusing on government relations coming soon, so stay tuned for that. It's going to be a super great episode and we will dive into all things government relations.

That being said, you two have incredibly interesting careers here at water one, and I would love to hear more about it. So let's dive into it. What would a typical day at WaterOne look like for you?

Ellen:

Think that's kind of the fun thing about this job, is that that's just not a thing. “A typical day” So, like yesterday, we started off the day we met with, member of the Overland Park chamber to talk about, their legislative priorities. And it touches water. So we wanted to kind of talk about that. And then there's always an endless queue of contracts to review. So you can sit I'll sit down and I'm going to get through this big one today. And then surely, you know, an engineer will walk in with a question about an easement language. And so, I mean, I think that's the beauty of it is, and also the beauty of, I guess, just in general, being in-house is you have to be flexible. And another beautiful thing, versus our outside lawyer friends is, you know, we don't have to work in six minute increments, keeping time for different clients because our one client is the water district. So, there is no typical day.

Darci:

Yeah, I would I would echo that. I mean, usually I have a list of things I want to get done in the course of a day, and rarely do I get through that list because there are things that just pop up. So we we end up fielding a lot of customer calls at times. If somebody has an issue out in the field, a lot of times it lands on our desk. And, you know, we're we're going to even if we don't know the answer, we're going to figure out the answer for you. Who has the answer for those customers. So we have to be able to deal with people that sometimes are upset with us. Whether it be a customer, a developer or a contractor. So to be able to kind of resolve those disputes or at least get them to a point where everybody walks away somewhat happy with the situation, the engineers are big customer.

So they having us right here with them is, is great because we get communication on the front end of issues that might be coming up so we can work with them to be proactive. When it comes to contracts, the volume of contracts is huge and they're all different kinds of contracts. You know, you have an IT contract, you have a, staffing agreement from Human Resources, just a general vendor agreement. But we have to kind of figure out the it probably are the hardest, I would say, because you have to figure out what the heck is this vendor even doing for us and what laws might apply to this contract. So I know sometimes people get frustrated. The legal is the black hole when it comes to contracts, but we actually read them review. They make changes to them even if our changes get rejected. So so we really are trying to do our due diligence with that kind of thing. So if anything comes out of this podcast, please be patient with your lawyers reviewing your contracts. So

McKenzie:

And what do you love most about your work?

Ellen:

I know I everyone says the same thing, but it's so true for me is the people, you know, this type of work, I think draws people that are passionate and, you know, just such a great mission that I love working with all the different people I get to work with and as much as contracts take our time. They also give us the ability to work with all different types of people in the organization. So I love that.

Darci:

I think problem solving is my favorite part about it, because we, we are like Ellen said, we're not really we get the issues early so that we can get presented with some facts. This is what we want to do. Can we do this within the limits of the law kind of thing? So that's really our job is to be able to say, yeah, we can do this, but this might be how you have to do it to stay within the limits of what the laws that apply to us would allow. So I enjoy that. It's kind of like solving a puzzle

McKenzie:

And you spend some of your time here at the office and some of your time in Topeka at the state Capitol. Why is that?

Ellen:

Well, so, the legislature is in session from January to pretty much early April every year. And so that is where I'll drive up there a couple days a week. Usually I'm following, in the last few years there's been a specific in the House, a water committee. So they meet on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings, and so I'll drive up to be in that room. Like you said, the room where it happens just because it's sort of, helpful to be there for the meetings after the meetings or to clarify or and that's kind of where we build the relationships with the legislators and the agency staff

McKenzie:

And if you could let our community know one thing about the work you do, what would it be?

Ellen:

Well, I would just say we're on top of it. Kind of what we've talked a lot about here today. And I don't even think we got into all the different ways that our people are plugged in. We now have this, specific government relations group within water, one that meets on a regular basis. But we all share the information of what we're hearing. So many of our engineers are in to their sphere. You know, our finance people hear things from their sphere and we all get together and make sure that we're on top of it. And I think being, I guess, back to the beginning of quasi municipal, you know, the one thing we do, we focus on clean water and all the aspects of that. So, yeah, I think I would just want our community to know we're on top of it.

McKenzie:

One of you said something similar to this earlier, that kind of idea of like, we're up at night, so you don't have to be like, we are working hard. We're worrying about it, you know, finding the best solutions so that our community can just turn on the sink and their shop and it's safe. It's clean. And, I think that's really important for them to know about.

Darci:

I think when I first started, maybe Eric or somebody was just, you know, we know we're doing our job when when people can just turn on the tap and not think of it, Yeah, it's there for them. And so yeah, I think it's important for the community to know. And I think I think they do know that WaterOne is really one of the leading water utilities in the United States. And really across the board, in every department, we have employees who are at the top of their game and are the best at what they do. I think, and that should give our community a lot of security. I think that's a really important thing to know. And we didn't get into it much in this episode. I think it could probably be its own episode, but we're talking about how we're involved on the government side of things, state federal level. But there's that whole other side of the water community, the American Waterworks Association. So many important conversations are happening over there. We are collaborating not just with, you know, state, municipalities, things of that nature.

We are also communicating and collaborating with neighboring water utilities from across the United States, having those conversations, looking at the future, what's coming up and how we can best prepare and move forward in those circumstances.

McKenzie:

Right. Well, thank you so much, both of you, for coming on the podcast and sharing your work with us. This has been such a valuable and informative episode that highlights one of the more complicated aspects of water. So thank you.

Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you everyone for listening. Make sure to share this episode with your friends and family, especially anyone interested in topics like this one. The next episode of our podcast will be the season two finale. Can you believe that? We have something super fun planned so you don't want to miss it!

In the meantime, make sure to follow us on our social media pages and I'll talk to you next time on Water You Talking About?

*Telephone Ring*

Elaine:

Thank you for calling WaterOne, this is Elaine. May I have your name, please?

McKenzie:

Hi, I'm McKenzie VanMeerhaeghe, I'm the host of the Water You Talking About Podcast with WaterOne. I have a really weird question for you. I'm wanting to do a podcast all about WaterOne's customer service. Would you be willing to pop by and come on the show?

Elaine:

Yes, I would love to. But would it be okay if I brought two friends with me?

Mckenzie:

Absolutely. I'll see you there.

*Intro Music*

Hi, folks. I'm McKenzie VanMeerhaeghe, and this is Water You Talking About? A podcast brought to you by WaterOne, where we talk about the ins and outs of all things water. Today we're talking about customer service. We will be learning about what WaterOne's customer service department is. Answer your commonly asked questions and get a look into what a day in the life of one of our customer service reps is like. Let's dive into it

Today we are so excited to be joined by three special guests Elaine, Essence, and Lindsay. These three wonderful ladies are an integral part of our customer service department. Can you each take a turn and introduce yourself?

Elaine:

Sure, I can start. My name is Elaine Corbin. I am the manager over the customer service department. I have been here for a little over a year and a half, which is a newbie compared to some of the tenures around here.

Lindsay:

My name is Lindsay Stimatze and I'm one of the supervisors of Customer care. I will be celebrating my one year anniversary with water one next month.

Mckenzie:

Well, congratulations.

Essence:

and I am Essence Henley. I am another customer service supervisor. I've been here for nine years.

Mckenzie:

Great. So you are ready to talk about all things customer service?

Elaine:

Yes. Let's do it.

Mckenzie:

All right, so to start this off, let's hear a little bit about you. Let's start with Elaine. Can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Elaine:

So I started my professional career working at Cerner Corporation, which is now Oracle. They're a healthcare IT company based out of Kansas City. Started there as an analyst shortly after graduating college. And just really found myself excited about, getting to train new people and eventually I had expressed that I wanted to be in leadership and start leading teams.

So I had the opportunity to become a team lead. Then just kind of moved up the leadership chain and ended up, leaving there as a senior manager before I moved on. And spent a couple of years at a another startup company or a startup company based out of Ohio. And they specialized in AI and machine learning. So I was doing something similar, leading a team, but of more technical analysts and software and system engineers. Unfortunately, they ended up just with a lot of the startup worlds that were happening in these past few years. They ended up just ultimately shutting down, which resulted in everybody in the company, unfortunately, getting laid off.

Mckenzie:

And why did you choose to start a career at WaterOne specifically?

Elaine:

Yeah, I after the untimely shutdown of my company and me getting laid off, I obviously needed a new job. My husband has a very expensive golf habit, and my kids want to play sports that, you know, cost an internal organ to pay for. So, I really needed to work. But, you know, in all seriousness, I think water one drew me here just because of the people, you know, from the first phone screen to the multiple interviews I did, I was just really felt at home when I got here. And it didn't it immediately made my nerves just calm down every time I met somebody else.

So I didn't have that, like, sick, nervous feeling about interviewing for a job after being, you know, deeply rooted in a place for over a decade. It's always nerve wracking to start something new. But whenever I was interviewing for WaterOne, and just communicating with people back and forth, both in email, and then verbally, I just felt like this was going to be a really good place. I knew they were, doing fun and good, exciting things. That also drew me here was being able to do things, for the community. And I don't live in Johnson County, but I had heard of WaterOne, just like the water utility over here. So that was important for me to be able to feel like I was also doing something good and right for the community as well.

Mckenzie:

Yeah, I agree, it was something that was a big draw for me to the people aspect, the community here, everybody is so welcoming and then the added bonus of being able to actively give back to your community. So rewarding. That's really okay. Lindsay, can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Lindsay:

Sure. So similar to Elaine, I started my professional career at Cerner right after finishing my master's program. I started in a technical role, though, so I was a technical solution analyst, supporting, physicians and clinicians in emergency departments across the country. So certainly a lot to learn there. I then moved into a little bit more experience, technical role called a solution architect and did that for a few years. I had an opportunity to lead those teams, after a couple of years.

And so that's when I moved into leadership. My career started to take a turn really at that point. And I started to focus on culture and organizational development, really as a leadership style for my teams. But it morphed into a larger opportunity at Cerner. And so I took a job as a senior program manager, helping our global services organization manage the employee experience. Employee engagement. And again, that employee development aspect, of the work. So I enjoyed that for a couple of years. I had an opportunity to formally transition into human resources with a company that, works out of New York City. And so I took that. So I, you know, again, similar to Elaine, I was at Cerner for over 11 years.

So it's a little scary to make a jump like that. But I knew I needed to spread my wings, gain perspective, experience, you know, things like that. So I spent two and a half years in human resources managing employee engagement. And then after that time, you know, I decided to kind of come back to where my heart was, which was client support, customer support. And that is how I made it. Back to WaterOne.

Mckenzie:

Love that. What about you, Essence? Can you tell me a little bit about your background?

Essence:

Yeah. So customer service has always been part of my background since I was in college. But when I moved to Kansas City back in 2013, I believe, I worked for, Optum RX, which is the prescription side of United Healthcare.

I loved that position because I was working with pharmacists, helping them process, customers and clients claims. Well, that position was, outsourced to, another country. And I didn't want to go into, their regular customer service role. And so I actually, I got a job and passed the test to become a pharmacy tech. But I also knew that just really wasn't what I wanted to do. And I had a friend from Optum RX who was a customer service rep here at, WaterOne. And she told me to apply. And I remember her calling me several times, like, did you apply it? And I was like, I don't want to work for a bottled water company. And, she explained to me, well, she didn't explain. She just ignored me. I guess she thought I was being funny. I finally applied.

Elaine:

You were serious, you were dead serious.

Essence:

I got the call. I came in for the interview. After that interview, I found out it was actually a water utility company. But even As Elaine talks about, like, even from the interview process, like, it was just laid back, I felt comfortable. Like everyone here, speaking of people, I mean, everyone is like. Hello? Hi. I remember telling people, like, when I first started, I thought it was Pleasantville like people were so, so nice here. And so I got hired on as a customer service rep.

I was in that role for about a year and a half, but I knew, since I was young, I've always been a leader, so that's just not where I wanted to be. About a year and a half after I got hired, I got the opportunity to, get promoted to our account admin, department, where I got to learn, you know, the ins and out the bolts of, like, how a billing system works.

And then got the opportunity four years ago to become a supervisor over the customer service department. So full circle.

Mckenzie:

Yeah. That's so amazing to hear.

Essence:

Yeah, I think I'm a human leak detector now. I stayed in the Army Airbnb recently, and my review when I was leaving, I was like, hey, I work in water utility. And so I'm really prone to, in house leaks, and your, tub faucet is leaking. You might want to look into that.

Elaine:

-Oh, I do that, too. I'm basically like timing showers now for my family. This is when we're watering. This is how long you can take a shower, turn the faucets off. I'm crazy now.

Mckenzie:

Exactly. Okay. To dive into this podcast, let's start by talking about the main goal of customer service. I know it's kind of a broad question, but what is the main goal of WaterOne's customer service?

Essence:

Well, I would say it's, one to show kindness, respect and make sure, you know, we're providing top notch customer service. One special thing about us is that many of us, including myself, our customers as well. We have put this, in the forefront of our minds when interacting with our customers and building policies. We are an organization built for customers by customers. And, you know, that's really special to me. You know, we always strive to meet a high standard of customer service. In fact, one of WaterOne's main strategic goals here is to provide excellent customer service.

Mckenzie:

Yes. And we're so proud of the customer service that we offer. So talking about customer satisfaction, what is our customer satisfaction rate for customer service?

Lindsay:

So at WaterOne we measure customer satisfaction two different ways. First we have a quarterly survey that measures overall satisfaction for really all facets of our business. So that could be it's not just customer service that can be any interaction that a customer has with water one throughout the course of the year.

And so we're very proud for that to carry, a score, just above 90%. The other way that we might measure customer satisfaction for our customer service department very specifically is through what we call transactional surveys and so those surveys are when we provide the customer the opportunity to give feedback on every single interaction they have with our team. And what this does is it allows us to capture timely, relevant feedback about that exact interaction that they had with our customer service reps. So this data, of course, is very important for us as leaders. So we can trend that, analyze that, and then use that data in order for us to make process improvements. Further, coach employees, work with our learning and development groups to provide education and training. Really, it's used for a whole lot of things, but ultimately to make customer service specifically more efficient and provide a higher level of service. So, last month we received 1500 survey responses.

Mckenzie:

Wow.

Lindsay:

Yes, that is exceptionally high. And so that's a survey response rate of over 40%. And again, if you compare that to industry standards, that is very, very high. And we set our strategy up because we want to hear the feedback, you know, and so we want that we want to talk to our customers. We want them to tell us how it's going. But really, we're, you know, our overall customer satisfaction rate for customer service specifically is over 98.5%. So those 1500 responses, yes, average 98.5. So that is phenomenal. And as a leadership team, I know that we are so, so proud, of the employees that we have on our front lines, they are fantastic. They are resilient. They're kind, caring. Really everything that you could want in an employee.

Mckenzie:

Absolutely. And those customer satisfaction surveys are such a big part in some of the things that we do to keep our ratings so high. Are there any other things that we do that helps keep our rating as high as it is

Elaine:

Yeah, I can jump in on that part. So our customers consistently give us high ratings. You know, different things between water quality, the reliability and then customer service. But, you know, along with that, like Lindsay kind of pointed out, like we try to make sure our staff is always friendly and extremely responsive. They can get ahold of us via phone. And if it's not during our open hours, they can also always reach us via email. So accessibility, I think is a big one too.

And as leaders, we're always reviewing the surveys to make sure that, you know, we're looking at the quality of service that we're providing to our customers. And then finding ways to use ways for us to improve so that we can share that with the team and have them, you know, execute those suggestions. And, you know, this is obviously important to us to ensure we're providing the best service possible to our customers. But I would say probably like the secret sauce is that we always make sure that our representatives are like in their happiest fed states, like, we sometimes give them hot breakfast. McDonald's sandwiches, and then they always get full sized candy bars on Thursdays. And I feel like that is always a good trick to having, you know, happy employees. But really, you should. Anyone listening go check out. We have these that results. You can get to them from our website. It's waterone.org/culture. And then you can click on customer satisfaction. So that link and then all other links that we talk about today are going to be unveiled, available in the episode. Description. And then the transcript too.

Mckenzie:

I agree with that sentiment so. Well, and I love the piece you mentioned about keeping our reps happy. I think it's something where we take care. We're an organization that takes care of ourselves from the inside out, so we take care of ourselves that we can do our best to take care of our community in the best way possible. And looking back to what Essence said, like we are a organization from customers, for customers.

I'm a customer myself too, and it's kind of that golden rule. Like, we always want to treat our customers with the utmost respect, the utmost care and quality that we can. Now, the next thing I want to touch on is the billing cycle. How often are customers billed?

Essence:

So we have two different, types. So we have our residential customers who are billed bi monthly. And we do that because it saves our rate payers, when we're in, not having to go out each month to, read the meters, to print those bills. And then we have our commercial customers who are billed, monthly.

Mckenzie:

Can you kind of explain the difference between residential and commercial customers?

Essence:

Yeah. So residential customers are those single family homes. And then you have like a multifamily residential, which are kind of like commercial where you have and so your multi-family and commercial customers are kind of on the same where multi-family you have like your townhomes are, your apartment complexes. And then commercials would be like, your strip malls or, Your hospitals, your schools, things of those nature that, that that is what falls under, commercial and multifamily properties.

Mckenzie:

Awesome. And how can customers pay their water bills?

Essence:

Great question. So, they're able to pay their bills, what we call snail mail. You can send it through the mail. Through the USPS. You can bring it into our, administrative office off of 10747 Renner Boulevard. We have a Dropbox also, also outside, the customers can drop it off. They can use their, bank bill pay to send that. But we also have a self-service option for our customers, which is our bills and payments dashboard. It's a great way for our customers willing to pay their bills, or view their bills, and with the bills and payments dashboard, they can choose to receive those bills in the mail, as they always are or they can sign up for paperless delivery. Which we love the option of paperless because one is not only saving 100 of trees per year, but it also allows them to receive notifications and reminders of when their bill is due. When that bill has come out. And if your life is busy like mine, we have auto pay. You can, you know, set that payment up and, you don't have to remember to pay it, which prevents you from getting late fees.

Another thing that we love about our dashboard, is that you can view and bill your payment and bill history all the way back to five years. You can sign up online at waterone.org/mybill.

Mckenzie:

Perfect. All right. We also have a different dashboard that customers can use, which is our view my usage portal. Can you talk a little bit about this?

Essence:

Yes. So the view my usage portal, has been a great tool for not only the customer service reps, but also for our customers, because this portal allows, our customers to view their daily usage, they're able to learn what the water usage patterns are. They're able to see, you know, certain changes in their household and how it affects their bills. And it allows them to catch leaks, early before it, you know, it starts to affect their bill.

One of the great things about, the usage portal, we always say is set it and forget it. They have the usage alerts, that they can set up that's done to, if their bill is trending high or they're using more water than, you know, they normally would, it alerts them and they can set that from daily, weekly, monthly, however they choose to receive those alerts. It's there to help them because no one wants to be surprised by a high water bill. And so this helps, you know, cut that out, helps them, you know, figure out, you know, what in their home or outside their home, maybe, you know, using this extra water as we talked about, you know, maybe you're taking too long or showers or whatever the case may be.

But it is a great tool. It's also very helpful for our customer service. So because it's able to help our customers understand, their billing, you know, where the, how usage started if you're watering a lot. So it helps them to really deep, dive into, you know, because we can see, the water use daily, hourly. You know, how that how that's happening? So it's a great tool. If you're not signed up, please sign up today. at waterone.org/usageandservices.

Mckenzie:

Yes. I love seeing leak alerts because not all of us are human water detectors. Like you guys. I'm getting really close. Yeah, I'm getting there. But it's so nice to see the different habits that you have and how that can cause changes in your water usage, which causes changes in your bill. So like during the summer, it's crazy how much water sprinkler systems use, which we did a whole episode on that. That is our smart watering episode if you want to go back and look at that. But those use a ton of water so much and it's something that maybe you don't even realize. And when you have like alerts, you can set, hey, if I don't want my water usage to go over like X amount per day, if it does notify me, then it can. I even seen some people set it to zero so they get a notification every day of like exactly what they're using.

Elaine:

We have a lot of customers that do that.

Mckenzie:

Yeah. Which is very smart. Okay. I have a very exciting announcement to make. There has been one point of contention for many of our customers regarding these two platforms, and that is why don't you have an easy single sign on? Well, why do I have to have two passwords sign on to two dashboards? Trust me, we have heard you. We are listening. We have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to create a single sign on solution for our customers and the portal is a part of our larger project and has a target launch of the end of 2026. So single sign on is coming.

Elaine:

Yeah, we are very excited for that.

Mckenzie:

Perfect. Is there anything you want to add on that?

Elaine:

No, I think you summed it up well. It's been a major pain point for our customers and again, employees that our customers to have to go to two different places, one for usage and one to do anything billing and payment related. So we are greatly excited for this. It's going to be a very large, project, going along with, you know, the large project for water one as a whole.

So, we're really excited because, again, this is a great opportunity for us to streamline, not just build and payment and usage, but essentially anything that a customer has to reach out to us to do. So it's not just going to touch those two facets, but if you think about other things that we have our customers do when they have to, you know, submit fire hydrant readings and, you know, there's a lot of different ways right now and a lot of different teams are involved, to touch those processes before it can be completed. This is a great way for us to have really a one stop shop portal that can truly do everything, and integrate with our new system as well. So we're excited.

Mckenzie:

Yeah. So you heard it here first on the podcast, and we will keep you updated as we make progress on this

Stay tuned. Because after this we dive into your commonly asked questions, and we get an inside look into what the day in the life of a customer service representative is like

*Music break*

Mckenzie:

All right. So you probably encounter a ton of different questions during your day. So what is one of the most commonly asked questions that you receive?

Essence:

Why is my bill so,

Mckenzie:

let's walk through that question together. Do you kind of have some tidbits, some information on typical reasons why somebody bill might be so high,

Essence:

Well, there are several reasons why a customer's bill could be high. And our reps kind of look at this. So one reason it could be high is maybe, you accidentally forgot to pay your previous bill. Maybe you had it set up on autopay and only a portion of it paid. And so there, you know that there's a portion of your previous bill in this bill. And so your bill is high. Maybe it's high because there were some additional fees added. Maybe there was a security deposit added. You know, maybe, there was some, a late fee or something at it, and now it's on this new bill. But one of the most, typical reasons is because of high water usage, whether that be, using your sprinkler. Maybe that is, you actually have a physical leak. But those are the typical reasons why a customer would have a high bill.

Mckenzie:

So, yeah. And as we just mentioned before the break, that can be easily avoided if you sign up for usage and services. Okay. What is another question that you get pretty frequently?

Essence:

I would say what is my balance? And I think a lot of times customers, do that because maybe they're trying to pay the bill with their bill pay, or maybe they're trying to write a check. And right now we do have the option for them to check their balance.

If they sign up for bills and payments, they can easily get their balance. But a lot of times they have to wait on the phone to talk to a customer service rep. But as mentioned earlier, with the, new portal that is coming, we that is one of the things that not only with the portal that they can get their balance, but also in the IVR we're working, to be able the customer can call, say, what's my balance in the IVR will just spit their, balance out to them. So we're really excited about, that function, being able to better our customer service.

Mckenzie:

Perfect. Okay. Another question that we get fairly frequently is Why wasn't I notified that my water would be down, or when is water going to be back on?

Elaine:

Yeah. So we do get that question a lot. So for us the biggest thing that we do is we plug Notify JoCo. So Notify JoCo is the county wide application that, folks can sign up for here in the county, not just for WaterOne, but for other county services as well, for them to get notified, when there's going to be, you know, downtime with their water and outage water shut downs.

So basically customers can go to Joco-, it's JoCogov.org- You go there. There's a big thing right on the front page. It says Notify JoCo. You'll click on that to register for an account. And if you're in this service address territory, you'll type your information in and then whenever we and actually it's our team or it, you know kind of touches first. Internally once we are notified, you know, whether it's from the form - usually the form. And we'll call in, to our, the dispatch team of our customer service department, and let us know that they are taking water down, whether it's because of, you know, an unexpected main break or, you know, they just have a valve replacement that's due anything like that where it's going to take water down for a certain area.

That information comes over to us. We've got, you know, very greatly skilled representatives that will then go into our system, open up our maps and say, hey, from this cross street, or you know, this valve, over to here, draw out the polygon of where you know, all the places that are going to be affected by the outage. And then we use an internal tool that basically interfaces with Notify JoCo, and they are responsible for sending that alert out to, you know, x number of people that live within that area. So that they could get notified of the, of the outage. And within that too, we always try and give a really good time frame of how long it's going to be get, how long it's going to be down. So, you know, a typical one could say, okay, from, you know, Concer Street to 87th, it's and we are expecting it for it to be down for 4 to 6 hours, you know, something like that. So that our customers have, a frame of reference, an idea of how long they're going to be without water, with obviously the intent to restore as quickly as possible. And our distribution guys do a great job of keeping up with that.

Mckenzie:

They do a fantastic job. Notify JoCo is such a pivotal part of our community. It's not just water alerts that you even receive through there. There's all types of county wide alerts that you get through Notify JoCo So if you are not signed up, highly urge you to go ahead. notifyjoco.org today and sign up. It's free. You get to tag locations. It's an amazing system. Yes.

Thank you so much for walking through those questions. If you are listening and you have any questions at all, you can always call customer service at 913-895-1800. Our reps are there Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 to answer any questions that you have. Let's walk through a day in your life now. So what might a typical day for you look like?

Elaine:

Yeah, I can start. So a typical day for me is is different every single day, which is one thing that I love about this job. And love working at WaterOne for honestly, usually consists of a lot of meetings. So it can be a combination of, you know, one on one meetings with my supervisors, performance meetings, leadership meetings, meetings with vendors, calling customers back.

And then, of course, the large project that we mentioned, regarding, you know, standing up that brand new, customer portal, there's a ton of work going in on that right now. So outside of meetings, there's also work outside of that, outside of live meetings for that to, you know, help. Right. Requirements. Working on the design, contract meetings with legal. So, yeah, my day is varied. It just always depends. But it's always busy even. It's something different, which is what I like.

Mckenzie:

Absolutely.

Lindsay:

So for me, you know, every single day is sort of a roller coaster of both strategic and operational management. You know, we have our goal is to have our customer representatives available 8 to 5 all the time, right throughout the day. And so our jobs as supervisors is to make sure that that is the case. And we have short wait times for our customers or no wait times. So operationally, you know, it's we're always managing schedules and ensuring that we have coverage for the phones and email again, 8 to 5 all day long, so that we can provide the best experience for our customers.

So, in between that sometimes multi-tasking, you know, like Elaine said, we also have meetings. And so a lot of those meetings, we focus on our larger strategy, our vision, you know, a lot of process improvement. So we'll spend time with other groups at water one talking about how we can better collaborate with each other, how we may be able to improve, a certain process within our teams, again, to improve the customer experience or the employee experience as well. So each day goes up and down from those things. And a lot of times we're working on both of those things at the same time because business does not stop from 8 to 5. And again, our goal is to make sure we're available for customers throughout the day.

Essence:

I agree with everything Elaine and Lindsey said. Only thing I think I'll add is, a big part of our day is, supporting our staff, whether that's, you know, answering questions, helping them with, know, figuring out how to assist with a customer call our, know, supporting them personally. Maybe they have something personal going on and, you know, just and need a shoulder to lean on or someone to talk to. Being there for them or just providing them coaching and encouragement. You know, maybe they've had having a hard day or, maybe they're struggling, you know, in a process or something, just continually, daily, you know, giving them some type of support.

Mckenzie:

Absolutely. And what do you all love most about your work?

Lindsay:

For me, it's exciting in the sense that we're always being presented with unique scenarios. And as a leadership team, we get the opportunity to take the time and assess those and really provide personal resolutions for customers. You know, essence has been here nine years. Cully our other supervisor and account administration has been here for 31 years. And, you know, they still experience new things, new situations every day. So every day is different. And we are presented with different challenges every day. But it helps with perspective, experience, knowledge, really all of those things. And the other aspect for me is that our jobs are very, very important. Customer service is the front door of WaterOne, and we have to be ready and available for our customers.

You know, reconnecting water, disconnecting water. Really, there's a myriad of things, you know, that have to be tended to immediately when it comes to something like water. And our work and the calls that we receive dictate what other groups in our company do every day. You know, we kind of dictate their priorities based on what our customers are telling us. And so we get to hear the customer voice. We then get to relay that to construction, to field services, to our lab, you know, to all of these other groups and water one. And so without us, the customer voice would, not be as loud. And so we're very, very proud to be able to carry that throughout the organization.

Elaine:

Yeah. For me, it's kind of two fold, very similar to what Lindsay said. Like, I get a lot of happiness and pride just seeing the team be able to, people's issues. We get voicemails every single week where we hear, different kudos, like, just pure happiness. Like sometimes to the point of tears, you know, of us being able to help, a person who is not super tech savvy get them set up on their account, or a person who, you know, just lost a spouse who always did the bills and now, you know, been able to be there for us since I do like a shoulder for them, not just our employees, but our customers too. So I get a lot of happiness and like pride in seeing our team be able to assist customers with problems and maybe even problems that they didn't even realize they were, you know, helping with just to personally be there, to speak to somebody. So that that's one of my favorite things. And then, I mean, the second part for me is just I love working with a really fun and high performing team.

Like, my favorite days are Thursdays, because the whole team is here on site and hearing just the general chatter, the camaraderie like the hustle and bustle of just people like moving around and, hearing them catch up with each other and seeing each other, you know, you see your employees walk in and, like, giving each other hugs like, that makes me feel good. As a leader on the team, you know, you can't always enjoy every single aspect of your job. But if you're going to enjoy doing things, doing your job with people that you like, I think that makes a world of difference. With a with a career

Mckenzie:

100%. Okay. If you could let our community know one thing about your work, what would it be?

Essence:

We don't just answer calls. We listen to concerns, we advocate for our customers, and we work behind the scenes to make sure that their water service is reliable and safe. And, we're responsive to their needs.

Mckenzie:

Yeah, I think something that goes unnoticed, I want to say, in customer service specifically, is the amount of technical knowledge that you have to have about the water industry and about our utility. That is a lot to know and a lot to be able to just like someone ask you a question and be able to just say, oh yeah, that's this, like you were saying earlier about our human water to like, leak detectors. That is so cool. And that is something that doesn't get seen that often, but is an incredibly useful skill to have and is super hard to gain. I feel like.

Essence:

Yeah. I always say, you know, I've always been in customer service, but I always even when interview and I always tell people like, customer service here is different than any other customer service you ever worked at. Yes. Like your skills to be empathetic and understanding and, you know, listening. But the technical knowledge is is totally different. It's not just a script you follow. It's not just push this button, push that like you literally are, almost an honorary plumbers.

*Laughter*

Elaine:

And putting it on my resumé

Essence:

and, you know, water quality specialists have to, like, handle this job to do this job effectively.

Mckenzie:

Yeah, absolutely.

Elaine:

I think they I think essence summed it up pretty well. But, you know, just to piggyback off of it a little bit, you know, having to be an expert in a lot of those things, like a something also that comes with that is like you have to sound confident to be able to do those things. When somebody is calling about something as sensitive as drinking water for themselves, their families, their kids, you have to be able to sound confident and make sure that we're getting things to the right place. So it's insanely important for us to be able to, discern what customers are saying. They're not always going to ask questions in the exact same way that, you know, you were taught in training.

So the critical thinking that goes along with this job, I think, sometimes goes unnoticed as well. Again, we have to touch the beginning part of every single other, you know, a lot of the other jobs in the divisions here at Water one, it'll sometimes start with us in the front door. So for us to again be able to gather the information that we need to take this to the next step, if it doesn't end with us, I think is, is really important for people to know what we do.

Mckenzie:

Wow, that is so amazing. Thank you so much, all three of you, for coming on the podcast today. It was such a great time to have you all here. I love getting to spend time with you guys every time we get to. Thank you so much for everything that you and your team does.

Essence:

Thank you for letting us be on.

Elaine:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Mckenzie:

Of course. Well, that's all we have for today. We had a few things listed out in this episode, and all of those mentioned will be available in both the episode transcript and the episode description.

Our next episode will be all about water regulations. We will dive deep into the regulations surrounding the water industry and the steps WaterOne takes to provide you with our award winning top. Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you next time on Water You Talking About!