The County Commission is working with Advanced Disposal to correct ongoing trash collection issues experienced throughout the county; this is our primary goal in this particular matter. An additional frustration related to Advanced Disposal is many citizens report having very long hold times when attempting to report a service issue to Advanced. The County Commission can provide immediate relief to this problem. Please see the statement below released by the County Commission today detailing the situation.
Bart
Commission Working to Ensure Service Issues Addressed
Since 2003, Advanced Disposal (previously called Sunflower Waste) has been the residential solid waste contractor for the citizens of Elmore County. As with any other service, the performance ebbs and flows as staffing shifts and outside influences impact operations. The Elmore County Commission is sensitive to these factors and how they affect the citizens of our county. From time to time, services provided by Advanced Disposal have been tweaked to better meet the needs of the citizens all while keeping costs to our citizens as low and reasonable as possible.
In a fast growing county like Elmore County though, sometimes the market demands outpace available resources and require additional changes to operations. The Commission continually communicates with Advanced Disposal on a number of topics including the periodic service related issues. Two specific issues of late are keeping routes running on time and when routes are delayed, communicating those delays effectively to customers.
The current service contract requires once a week pickup to a paying customer by Advanced. With individual customers having prescribed pickup days established by Advanced, frustrations mount when a mechanical malfunction or human issue causes a route to be delayed a day or two. Understand that the Commission has a keen sense of this frustration, but is also aware that trash is being serviced in most all situations within the prescribed timeframes. The Commission desires less frequent interruptions in service delays and has been actively engaged with Advanced Disposal as they get these issues under control.
The second and probably most important issue is the communications end. Way too many times, the County Commission or county staff hear reports of long hold times or poor information being disseminated to paying customers by Advanced Disposal’s customer service call center. Centrally located in Moody, AL, this call center has been the subject of frustration for our citizens and even local Advanced Disposal representatives. Ongoing conversations, training and feedback are all mechanisms being employed to assist Advanced Disposal in correcting this important issue.
To assist with the communications piece of the puzzle, the County Commission is offering an additional method to have service issues relayed to local Advanced Disposal representatives. Our Report a Recycling or Trash (under the Contact Us tab on our website, https://www.elmoreco.org/report-a-problem) delivers messages via an email address of trash@elmoreco.org. Where phone calls and social media posts about issues may have their time and place, citizens who have had an unsuccessful effort getting Advanced Disposal’s customer service to address their issue are encouraged to share their issue with the County Commission via the Contact Us tab or more directly by emailing us at trash@elmoreco.org. Through this additional means of reporting, the County Commission will be able to track service issues in a more effective manner and relay these items onto local Advanced Disposal representatives.
Ultimately, the County Commission desires the citizens of Elmore County to have a quality service provided at a reasonable cost. The County Commission fully anticipates that Advanced Disposal will respond accordingly to address these deficiencies and return their service to the standards that the County Commission, our citizens and Advanced Disposal desires.