ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — 30 new customer service reps started this week at RG&E and NYSEG in an effort that the companies say should help with the ongoing billing issues.

News 8 has been reporting on the erroneous bills for a full year. After months of complaints, RG&E said they need help in their call center to reduce wait times.

This is the first class to graduate from virtual training, and employees have the option to work from home. It’s part of their initiative to fill staffing shortages.

Employees started taking calls on Monday

They say a backlog of manual bill reviews, has dropped more than 40% percent since last year.

RGE and NYSEG continue to process more than 40,000 bills a month.

In other news, RG&E is starting to install what they’re calling smart meters.

They hope these will help customers with energy use, in addition to their bills. Next month, RG&E will begin to install about 26-thousand smart meters in Wayne and Cayuga counties.

These smart meters are just like regular meters but with more advanced technology. This means meter readers will no longer need to gain access to your home to read the meter. The information from the meter will be sent automatically to the company.