After Hydro One introduced a new customer information system in May 2013, customers experienced missing, delayed, estimated and unexpected catch-up bills, along with difficulty getting problems resolved. An Ontario Ombudsman investigation documented the customer impact, shortcomings in training and complaint handling, and a recovery effort that extended beyond technical corrections. The available record concerns implementation and remediation, not the original vendor-selection process.
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Utility: Hydro One
Utility type: Provincial utility
Technology / purchase: Customer Information / Billing System (CIS)
Buying archetype: Failure- or performance-driven replacement / remediation
Stages visible in the record: Adoption & Implementation
Stakeholders explicitly visible: Customers; call-centre and customer relations staff; outsourced service providers; Hydro One executives, managers and board; customer-service recovery teams; Ontario Ombudsman; Ontario Energy Board
Evidence / information explicitly mentioned: Ombudsman investigation and complaint records; customer-service recovery plan; staff training and call scripts; billing and call-quality monitoring; corporate scorecards and performance targets; Ombudsman recommendations and follow-up report
Outcome: CIS implemented in May 2013; substantial billing and customer-service remediation followed. Hydro One accepted all 65 Ombudsman recommendations directed to it. It later reported that it had “fully addressed” those recommendations and restored customer satisfaction to 85%; the Ombudsman could not independently verify either claim after its jurisdiction ended.
Source basis: Independent Ontario Ombudsman investigation report and subsequent annual-report follow-up
What triggered the purchase
The Ombudsman report states that Hydro One's previous customer information system operated on a platform installed in 1998 that was no longer supported by its vendor. In 2011, Hydro One allocated funding to replace the system as part of a wider information-technology refresh. The new CIS, used for billing and account management, went live in May 2013.
The report provides this background but does not reconstruct the original supplier comparison, contractual decision or award. Its detailed evidence begins with the transition to the new system and the resulting customer-service problems.
How the utility defined what it needed
The available sources do not document a pre-award requirements-development or vendor-evaluation record. They do establish that the system change was expected to improve customer service and support billing and account management.
After go-live, the adequacy of customer-facing operations became a central issue. The Ombudsman found that staff responsible for answering customers' questions had not been adequately prepared. Call-centre agents described incomplete or changing training materials, and customer relations staff lacked training on certain system exceptions. The report also identified shortcomings in communication, escalation and complaint resolution.
How vendors or options were evaluated
The sources do not identify the competing CIS vendors, selection criteria or original award rationale. The documented assessment was post-implementation scrutiny of billing and customer-service performance, not a retrospective procurement evaluation.
Following the May 2013 changeover, more than 89,000 customers stopped receiving bills at one point, according to the Ombudsman. Others received prolonged estimates, multiple invoices or large catch-up bills. The Ombudsman estimated that the total number affected by billing and related errors since implementation was likely well over 100,000. Its office received 10,565 complaints in connection with the investigation by the time of the May 2015 report.
Hydro One was notified of the Ombudsman's systemic investigation on February 3, 2014. The Ombudsman report states that Hydro One began its customer-service recovery plan when it learned of the investigation; the Ombudsman publicly announced the investigation on February 4, 2014. The report documents technical corrections alongside additional staffing, agent training and scripts, revised procedures, explanatory customer communications, payment arrangements and measures to prevent some unexpected large bills or withdrawals. Hydro One also established a team to work on complaints referred by the Ombudsman.
The investigation ultimately called for stronger staff readiness, monitoring of call quality and billing problems, escalation of customer concerns to management, and more accurate performance reporting. These were assessments and corrective measures after the CIS was implemented; they do not establish how the original system was selected.
Evidence and information explicitly mentioned
Ombudsman investigation and complaint records
The Ontario Ombudsman's May 2015 report, In the Dark, draws on customer complaints, interviews and internal records to describe billing problems and Hydro One's response. It reports both technical glitches and deficiencies in training, communications, customer-service practices and organizational oversight. The report explicitly states that the core maladministration did not lie in defective data or software programming.
Staff training, call scripts and service procedures
The investigation documented shortcomings in training before go-live, as well as subsequent refresher training and revised call scripts. Hydro One's recovery plan included additional training and staffing. Among the Ombudsman's recommendations were comprehensive training before future customer-impacting initiatives, feedback from frontline staff, more effective call scripts and checks on staff readiness. Recommendations for future practice should not be mistaken for evidence that every proposed control was already in place.
Corporate scorecards and performance monitoring
Hydro One's corporate scorecards and customer-satisfaction measures were part of the evidence the Ombudsman examined. Its 2013 scorecard reported 87% customer satisfaction despite the billing and complaint problems. The 2014 scorecard added measures such as unscheduled estimated bills and customers receiving no bill. The Ombudsman questioned whether existing surveys and reporting adequately revealed the problems and recommended changes to customer-satisfaction measurement, call-quality monitoring and management reporting.
Recommendations and follow-up reporting
The May 2015 report made 66 recommendations in total: 65 directed to Hydro One, all of which Hydro One accepted, and Recommendation 66 directed to the Government of Ontario. The recommendations addressed customer impact, training, communication, complaint handling, performance monitoring, governance and progress reporting.
Outcome
Following the May 2013 CIS implementation, Hydro One undertook an extensive billing and customer-service recovery effort. The documented actions included changes to customer communications and payment practices, staff support, complaint resolution and performance controls. The Ombudsman report did not treat technical corrections alone as an adequate response to the problems it found.
In November 2015, Hydro One reported that it had fully addressed the 65 recommendations directed to it and had restored customer satisfaction to 85%. The Ontario Ombudsman's 2015–2016 annual report records those statements but says the office could not independently verify them or assess their impact because it had lost jurisdiction over Hydro One in June 2015.
Why this case matters for vendors
Billing corrections did not resolve the customer-service questions on their own
Hydro One implemented technical corrections and a recovery plan, but the Ombudsman's investigation also examined whether employees could explain bills, respond to complaints and help affected customers. Its recommendations covered training, call scripts, frontline feedback and customer-service procedures. This case documents how the consequences of implementation were assessed through customer-facing work, not only changes to the system.
Reported satisfaction scores did not capture the scale of the disruption
Hydro One's 2013 corporate scorecard reported 87% customer satisfaction even as billing problems accumulated. The Ombudsman challenged the adequacy of that measurement and called for better call-quality monitoring, complaint reporting and oversight. The later follow-up also distinguishes Hydro One's reported progress from an independently verified result. In this case, post-go-live performance reporting was itself subject to scrutiny.
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S026 — Ontario Ombudsman, In the Dark (May 2015)
Public link: https://www.ombudsman.on.ca/sites/default/files/Files/sitemedia/Documents/Investigations/SORT%20Investigations/HydroOne-ENG-MAY_webready.pdf
Relevant sections: executive summary, pp. 5–10; staff training and supports, pp. 49–51 and recommendations on pp. 97–98; corporate scorecards, pp. 60–62; recommendations and responses, pp. 95–105.S027 — Ontario Ombudsman, 2015–2016 Annual Report
Public link: https://www.ombudsman.on.ca/en/our-work/annual-reports/2015-2016-annual-report
Relevant section: Energy & Environment → Investigations → “Systemic investigation: Hydro One billing and customer service.”Source provenance: S026 is an independent public investigation and oversight report, not a utility procurement record or engineering assessment. S027 is an independent oversight follow-up that reports Hydro One's subsequent statements about corrective actions and customer satisfaction.
Evidence limitations: These sources do not reconstruct the original vendor-selection process, establish a software defect as the underlying cause of the Ombudsman's maladministration findings, or demonstrate that remediation amounted to a new procurement. Hydro One's November 2015 claims were not independently verified by the Ombudsman after its jurisdiction ended.
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