Southern California Gas Unveils Redesigned Bills

By next week, Southern California Gas customers will begin to receive newly designed gas bills that are larger and less cluttered than the old bills.

The gas company said it spent nearly two years and about $50,000 to redesign the bills, which have been the subject of 6 million customer questions and complaints each year. The gas company said it expects to save $250,000 yearly in customer service costs related to gas bill inquiries. However, the new bills cost $200,000 a year more than the old ones, mostly because they are larger.

Al Russell, manager of customer services for the gas company, said the changes were intended not so much to save the gas company money as to reduce confusion among the company’s 4 million customers.

The biggest change is that the new bills define such terms as billing factor, therms and baseline, which are used when calculating bills. Russell said consumer testing showed that 50% of consumers found the old bill confusing, whereas just 5% of consumers are confused by the new one.