Answer customers' questions about services and charges, or direct them to customer service centers.

“Answer customers' questions about services and charges, or direct them to customer service centers.” is a core task performed by Meter Readers, Utilities. Among the occupation's 13 rated tasks, workers place it 5th by importance (#9 most important). About 87% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Provide information to guests, clients, or customers. in Communicating with People Outside the Organization
• Assist others to access additional services or resources. in Assisting and Caring for Others

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E1. Direct exposure — a language model could plausibly cut the time to do this task by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 1.00. Automation potential label: T3.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Read electric, gas, water, or steam consumption meters and enter data in route books or hand-held computers. · importance 4.5
• Upload into office computers all information collected on hand-held computers during meter rounds, or return route books or hand-held computers to business offices so that data can be compiled. · importance 4.3
• Walk or drive vehicles along established routes to take readings of meter dials. · importance 4.3
• Verify readings in cases where consumption appears to be abnormal, and record possible reasons for fluctuations. · importance 4.2
• Inspect meters for unauthorized connections, defects, and damage, such as broken seals. · importance 4.2
• Report to service departments any problems, such as meter irregularities, damaged equipment, or impediments to meter access, including dogs. · importance 4.1
• Leave messages to arrange different times to read meters in cases in which meters are not accessible. · importance 4.0
• Connect and disconnect utility services at specific locations. · importance 4.0
• Update client address and meter location information. · importance 3.8
• Report lost or broken keys. · importance 3.7
• Perform preventative maintenance or minor repairs on meters. · importance 3.7
• Collect past-due bills.

See all tasks on the Meter Readers, Utilities page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-11315,
  title  = {Answer customers' questions about services and charges, or direct them to customer service centers.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-11315}
}