Duke Energy

I depend on my electric bill app to work at all costs. It’s my electric. I full understand when technical service is being done and they alert the customers when trying to log in or even via email that it may be down for some time, however I have not gotten that on the app or manually logging in online. Instead I get unable to complete, try again later, we’re experiencing difficulties etc. They have all the marketing in the world to keep sending me physical junk mail and email junk for more things for me to sign up to, yet can’t advise the customers when their service is down, rather if they know yet or not. I’m typically spammed as well from this app for leaving a review constantly when I am logged in, so I figured the one time since I couldn’t, I might as well finally leave my honest one now on my own time.

I’m experiencing an outage right now. I reported it via text and text back said over 1,500 ppl are affected. Then I remembered I had downloaded the app so I opened it to see if I could see the outage info and updates. My app doesn’t detect that I submitted an outage until I resubmit it via the app. Also there is no outage map on the app?! And no updates. I found an outage map for Duke via a web browser but that one gets updated every 15 minutes and no sign of my outage that supposedly is involving 1,500+ ppl. After the debacle that was Duke’s communication with its customers during Hurricane Irma in 2017 (when we were without power and communication from Duke for over a week), I would have hoped that things would have improved. However, it seems that it hasn’t. Your text system seems to have the information so the app should be updated with the SAME info in real time. Otherwise, it’s useless. Please fix this. Thanks.

That Duke Energy has an app is nice. The layout and navigation could be better. A home button to avoid backing all the way out. The data is unlikely to change during a single session and could be cached for that one session. The impression is that it’s querying the source each time it displays a known screen, causes a delay in display, and an undue burden to the source. While performing the initial display, it could be prefetching additional data. I’m not going to use an uncommon online payment service. Western Union is a known name, but not for online payments. No benefit to me to give another company my account details, and pay a fee. Other monthly services do not require this. Integrate with Apple Pay. Give the user confidence.