No Power, No Help: People Deserve Much Better Enemalta Support
Enemalta is leaving customers in the dark in more ways than one.
Even if the constant power cuts can be forgiven (they can’t), the sheer lack of customer support to people impacted by them is simply not on.
Over the past week, people have been reaching out to us to speak out about their frustrations at Enemalta’s customer service. People have reported spending over an hour on the phone, waiting for someone to pick up, only for the line to go dead or for the person on the under end to give a stock response.
Last weekend, I experienced this situation firsthand. The power suddenly went out while I was working, and I called up Enemalta to find out what was going on.
“There are problems in the area and our technicians are going on site to figure out what’s wrong,” the representative said.
I found a spot with electricity, checked Enemalta’s website and found that my street was indeed marked as being impacted by “high-tension outage”. However, there were no further details on their website or any of their social media pages.
Some time later, I called again to ask for an update but was only told that there was “serious damage” (ħsara kbira).
That sounded pretty ominous so I asked whether the maintenance was expected to last an hour, a few hours or the entire night.
“We don’t know at this stage,” he responded.
An hour later, I called Enemalta for a third time to request an update and to ask whether a generator will be dispatched to alleviate the problem.
It took around 40 minutes for Enemalta to pick up. The man on the line, who sounded like the same person who had picked up on the previous two phone calls, was polite but sounded tired and I couldn’t blame him at all.
He forwarded the call to another number, which turned out to be the central servizz.gov government platform, but the woman on the line said he shouldn’t have done so. She forwarded me to another number, but no one picked up.
Eventually, the power did go back on, but I would be lying if I had to say that I wasn’t left with a bitter taste in my mouth.
To be clear, I have no criticism of the customer support representatives per se. They were polite throughout, which is no mean feat considering how many phone calls from angry customers they must have gone through.
They were operating according to the information that was given to them, but the problem is they were barely given any information at all.
It seemed like they were simply serving as punching bags – absorbing public complaints without being able to tell people exactly what was going on and when the power will be restored.
This nonchalant stance shows that, despite Miriam Dalli’s words of concern, the government views power cuts as an inconvenience at best, and not a major problem.
Power cuts should be viewed as completely unacceptable in 2024, but when they do arise, the least the government can do is have all hands on deck to inform people exactly what is going on and when the electricity will be restored.
People should be allowed to plan their days accordingly and not be left in limbo.
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