Citizens Gas & Coke Utility

I’ve lived with roommates since I moved here in 2006, and have moved quite a few times. Because of this, I’ve had more than a few run-​ins with our local gas company. Whenever I’ve been at the office (at least 4 times) to resolve issues, the staff has been helpful and polite. Considering the kind of behavior I’m sure they deal with on a regular basis, this is nothing short of a miracle. They’ve been pretty helpful over the phone too. When our gas was disconnected (roommate oversight during transfer of services), the phone rep. even put a rush on the service so we were able to have hot water again within 24 hours of the phone call. The phone rep politely listened to the issue and was understanding of what had happened.
Something people might not know is that if you have to have gas reconnected (turned back on), someone physically comes into the home and inspects your gas appliances to be sure they are safe before turning the valve. You’ll need to be home for the reconnect. A minor inconvenience, but not as bad as having your house blow up or being poisoned by carbon monoxide. This is why there is a reconnect fee… because the gas could have been turned off due to unsafe conditions, and it takes more labor to ensure conditions are now safe.
I also really like the the gas and water are the same company now, and I can drop off or mail both payments to the same place. I appreciate that the company merged billing so that both bills are due on the same day.

I give them money and they help keep my water and house warm. I have no real complaints or accolades for this company. I am fairly indifferent, but glad they are around. Don’t think I can safely burn wood without a fireplace inside to heat the house and I am not a fan of boiling water for showers.

Customer service is why I am not giving 3 or MAYBE 4 stars… BUT maybe I will update my review after having it for more than 1 month…
My complaint is that I got charged for a ‘reconnection’ of services… here is why this happened: We were looking to buy a vacant property and had to turn on the gas in order to have it inspected. Then as anyone else would do who didn’t own the property, we turned it off (not knowing if we would end up owning this property or not). Citizens Gas claims they informed us of this and I don’t believe it to be so… but I don’t recall being informed that to turn the gas back on in your name would thus be a reconnection fee of $ 44. BUT since we had turned it on and off and back on, EVEN THOUGH we didn’t own it initially, we had to pay that fee! They claim that it HAS to be charged to cover the cost of the turn on… sooooooo I guess is someone else turns it on there is no cost??? Makes next to no sense to me!
AND so you know, if you do this with the water, they will politely without charge come and turn your water on and/​off! Very friendly and considerate!!! I WOULD THINK that gas would be more of a potential hazard if there is a problem than the water, but yet, again, we have had the water turned on and off and they have NOT charged us! Thank you water company!
SO NOTE TO SELF, IF you are needing an inspection, find someone else to turn on the gas for you in their name, if you plan to turn it back off — SO that when you purchase the place and turn it on again, you don’t have to pay this reconnection fee!
ALSO about their website, NOT all that user friendly… Tying to set up auto payments and it isn’t showing me that it is set up… Was able to make a single payment, but don’t know if this will be annoying (as the other review states) every month!?!

Only reason I like Citizens Gas is because they keep my house warm. I just finished paying my monthly bills (figured that was a good idea before I did too much Christmas shopping!), and everything went smoothly until I paid my gas bill. It is so inconvenient to pay your gas bill online! Grrr!!! You have to jump through a bunch of hoops, and it is not user-​friendly at all. Why can’t they just store my 12 digit account number? Instead, I have to manually enter it every single month, along with my zip, even after I am already logged in. It makes no sense.
I decided to opt in to their budget plan, but the way they bill it… again, makes no sense, and I will probably never figure it out unless I call them. But when is it ever convenient to call in during their business hours, since I’m at work during those hours too? Oops… I forgot about one easy way to communicate with them. Have you seen their new asinine commercials featuring their CEO? He wants to hear from his customers, so he’ll be online to chat with you on a regular basis. And such convenient hours he keeps — every Tuesday from 6 – 7 pm. So, I’ll just pencil that into my calendar and perhaps he can explain their online payment system’s shortcomings to me, along with their method of budget billing. I’ll get right on that.
Oh, and maybe if they didn’t spend all that money on the ridiculous television and billboard ads, our rates wouldn’t be quite so high?! Hmmm…