Norwich ― Norwich Public Utilities will adjust the hours of its customer service center at 173 North Main St. to better cover busy times for call-in and in-person customers.

Beginning Monday, April 3, the customer service center will be open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with extended hours from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays. The office currently is open 8 a.m. to 5 pm.

NPU spokesman Chris Riley said the utility was able to adjust lunch schedules for employees to have more staff available for the busy periods from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to answer phones and see walk-in customers.

The NPU's Customer Service Center is staffed by 14 customer service representatives and one manager. This team manages an enormous workload and is the primary point of contact for NPU with their customers, NPU officials said in a news release on the new hours.

In a typical year, the NPU Customer Service Center manages 7,500 customers who come into the center with questions or concerns, 15,000 customers who come into the center to pay bills in person, 131,000 customer phone calls to process payments and resolve issues and 310,000 bills generated for all residential and commercial customers.

The adjustments were made with input from the customer representative staff and will not add to NPU's operational costs, the news release stated.