As businesses and government take additional steps to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, FortisBC has taken several steps to protect the health and safety of our customers and employees while maintaining service levels and responding quickly to any emergency or outage situations.
SAFETY FIRST
First and foremost, we are working to keep our employees healthy. We’ve asked all employees to self-isolate if they feel any symptoms associated with COVID-19 and, if those symptoms worsen, to seek medical attention. To increase social distancing at our offices, we’re organizing ways for employees to work from home when possible to decrease the number of people at our office facilities. We’ve also asked our employees to cancel any in-person meetings with vendors for the time being and limit the number of people in any face-to-face meetings.
To assist in containment, we have also cancelled any non-essential work related travel for our staff and, for any staff travelling for personal or work reasons, will be asking them to self-isolate for two weeks upon their return to ensure they have not contracted the virus. We’ve also closed our offices to public visits for the time being and meeting with more vendors and contractors via teleconference rather than in person.
As an essential service provider, some of our work cannot be done remotely. Our operational staff working in the field will continue regularly scheduled work to ensure we are able to deliver energy safely and reliably. We’ve taken a close look at our field staff levels across the province and have plans in place to maintain service levels and respond to outages or emergencies promptly across different scenarios. We’re also managing our supply chain to ensure we have a healthy inventory of critical materials and supplies required to do our work on a day to day basis.
We’re supporting essential service providers and are in regular contact with other utilities and all levels of government to ensure that we’re working together to support British Columbians. Our people are prepared and we have plans in place to deal with situations which may arise over the coming weeks. We know the best service we can offer is to continue providing safe, reliable energy through these challenging times and beyond.
CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTRE
We know that the COVID-19 outbreak has affected many of our customers’ livelihoods. Our customer service centre is available to help any customer who is facing financial difficulty for any reason and will help tailor a solution to fit their individual situation. Our customer service representatives can be reached at 1-866-436-7847 for electricity and 1-888-224-2710 for natural gas.
WAIVING LATE PAYMENT FEES
We’re here to help. We’ve waived all late payment fees for natural gas, electricity and propane bills. This means that if you have a balance currently owing, you will not have to pay a late fee. This applies to all of our customers – homeowners or renters, large and small business owners and industrial customers.
We understand you have many concerns right now, and we’re here to work with you to bring your account up to date without penalty.
Suspending disconnections
At this time, we won’t disconnect any customer from the energy they need, whether it be natural gas, electricity or propane, due to financial hardship – regardless of the amount owing.
Flexible payment options
Our customer service representatives are here to help if you’re facing financial difficulty for any reason. Together, we’ll tailor a flexible payment solution that will fit your needs. Call us about your concerns and allow our team to help you find a way forward. You can reach us, Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at:
Natural gas – 1-888-224-2710
Electricity – 1-866-436-7847
You can also email us at gas.customerservice@fortisbc.com or electricity.customerservice@fortisbc.com and access your Account Online.
For regular updates and further information: www.fortisbc.com/covid19
