A True Calling to Serve the East Bay
Try stumping Aunquise with a question about EBMUD and you’ll be hard pressed to do so. She’s mastered the art of researching tough questions and being plain “nosy” to find answers for inquiring customers.
Like a quiz show, she’s regularly peppered with a potpourri of questions, from billing issues to meter reading. She’ll often don a detective hat to investigate mysterious high bills, asking customers to take pictures of their meters and send them in so she can get a “closer” look.
Aunquise answers nearly 300 customer emails weekly and fields calls and letters, as well. With a soothing voice that can temper any caller, she’s helpful, resourceful and, above all, kind in her approach.
“I treat people as if I were on the phone with my mother, my grandmother or my aunt,” she says.
Starting at 14, she learned communication skills during an internship with the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Training other interns to perform her tasks was part of her job. Zoom to now, she’s imparting trainings to classrooms of Customer Service Representatives.
“I’ve always been eager to help,” she says. “I enjoy empowering customers.”
It’s more than a coincidence; Aunquise’s line of work is a true calling. In fact, today she works in EBMUD’s office, one street away from her childhood home.
“I want to help the community that I grew up in,” she says. “Not only do I get to do it on my own time, but I get to do it while working. It doesn’t get better than that.”