Rapid City Water Department

A thank you to the Rapid City Water Department crews for fixing a broken water main in Canyon Lake area in a timely manner. So appreciate their quick response to the problem!

Chris from Rapid City Water Utilities was amazing. Our water randomly stopped working, and he tried to help us after normal business hours. He was very thoughtful and tried his best to give us the answer we needed to get our water back on! He knew exactly what was wrong and we were able to get it fixed! Great job, Chris. Thank you for your time.

I had a wonderful experience with Rapid City’s utilities. I maoved to town and their staff on the phone was very friendly. They set up the water easily, gave heads up on fees I would expect to see, and even replaced the garbage receptacles when they had been damaged by the previous owner! Very pleased

What friendly service! They were so quick to get my water hooked up. They also pointed me in the right direction for trash pick up with a friendly attitude.

Not happy that there is an administrative fee of $40 for a new account creation when just across town have had an active account with 9 years perfect pay history and auto pay. New address, new account required, easy way to get an additional fee. Also not thrilled the are no options to waive or avoid a deposit with said great pay history or letter of credit from another utility. $84 extra cost rubs me the wrong way.

This has been the worst billing experience I've seen in 45 years. Auto pay never works. Oine accounts constantly have to be reset. Now they have shut off my water and the only charges on the account are late fees foe a bill I paid last month. The late fees are charged after I paid last month's bill in fill and set up autopay again! This city is corrupt and want nothing but to bleed you dry. $175 in late fees on an $80 water bill that isnt even late and its disconnected so another fee. Wife and 2 kids with no water. Insanity, corruption, incompetent, overpaid city workers. Typical rapid city. DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF MOVING HERE.

I haven't had problems with them directly but they did feed us to the wolves by offering us sewer line coverage through homeserve. The most god awful customer service experience ever. They don't care that you have no sewer and will not try to help you. All they do is tell you, "well you can pay out of pocket if you don't like our time frame." Just save your money yourself and call A-1 ditching.

13 days now. No garbage pickup. Easter weekend mind you. Inefficient ,lazy, entitled. Typical local govt here. No one's responsible.

Terrible service for the money we pay. Customer service is nonexistent. Typical City/County government services. They are rude and don’t care about job security…enough to even be polite. No wonder people in this part of the country dislike local government. Trespass on peoples property to put up the water readers. It’s coming to your house soon! I’d like to see them try to put water meters on the front of houses on West Blvd. lol

If I could give them 0 stars I would. Trying to set up automatic withdrawals with the water company has been an absolute nightmare. If there was any other option for your water, no one would ever use these folks. I am seriously perplexed by how difficult they’ve made this process. It’s the 21st century and you’d think you had reverted back in time trying to have a conversation with these folks about setting up automatic billing. They put my account information in wrong multiple times and then had the audacity to move me to a cash only plan due to their mistakes. I have paid THOUSANDS of dollars in fees because they can’t figure this out. And when trying to figure it out, neither the cashiers office or the billing office will take responsibility. They just refer you back and forth between the two. They are literally out here robbing people blind because it’s the community’s only option for water. You’re trash Rapid City Water. Every single time we think we have this figured out, you switch up want you want from us and make us jump through another loophole.

Horrible service, people helping you at City Hall do not care about you. Online service is terrible. The shut your water off for fun. 0/5 stars

They had a huge main break in the road above me which made a river (not exaggerating) of water cascading over my huge 12' high rock retaining wall. The wall collapsed, flooded the lower level of house and covered the back yard grass with sand. Apparently not their fault (state law if main breaks). Called in and asked for help at least clearing boulders from driveway since they had equipment there... big no on that. Bid for wall $30,000, not including everything else. They said they might have something to help pay for water in basement apartment, never got a dime. Most recently, on vacation, they turned off water in a 4 plex. No note on door or anything. I called in a week before to go over my accounts. My online payment through my bank was late (but came in 2 days later). I have rentals, people live there, the bill will get paid. Come on guys. This is typical city attitude anymore. We are right your wrong. Pay up. My family originally came here in a covered wagon. I think the original homesteaders would be dissapointed to know.

I'm going to join the boomers in complaining about this place.

I have to work weekends and holidays, they do not. So if you need to get in touch with them about your bill, don't even bother really. Also don't ask to pay over the phone, your options are in person or online.
Which leads me to the online service they use for bill pay, TYLER Technologies, is entirely unmanageable and almost impossible to navigate. It is very user ANTI-FRIENDLY. They've had issues with accounts getting locked out for literal months now. You have the option to redeem your password with an email, but the email never comes. When I contacted rapid city utilities to reach a solution, they basically said there is nothing they can do and I'll have to create a new account. (I'm on account number 3?) You should be in contact with the business you're using to provide services to your customers, make sure everything is working accordingly, otherwise thats poor business practice.
My other issue with the online service, and perhaps that's a privacy issue, is you cannot search for another address without having the account number and customer number. I had called in person to have my account switched to a new address, as a customer service with modern day technology it would almost go hand in hand to have that new service address show up on my "customer account" when I called for an address change. It is especially hard to do this when I have not (to my knowledge) received a paper statement for my new address. Which leads full circle to my initial issue where they are unreachable unless it's convenient for them.

Rapid City utilities as a whole, with the technology they use as well as their work practice, is very OUTDATED. It is not customer oriented and probably never will be.

Twice, in the year I spent in a Rapid City home, my water was shut off for non-payment despite being on Auto-Pay, despite the money being taken out of my account on the scheduled day, my Water was still shut off.

My water was shut off because it was scheduled to be taken out of my account on the same day it was scheduled to be shut off for "Late Payment."

There is no option to set the date your bill is withdrawn. It's withdrawn on the billing date set in whatever program they use.

Twice, my water was shut off because the "Terminate Services for Late Payment" day was the same day that my payment was scheduled. Twice. They start work at 7am. Money is taken out of my account at 8am. Water is shut off at 10am. Because the Tech gets his morning print-out of houses, and never gets updated.

Absolutely infuriating.

And, the best part: I had to pay extra money to have it turned back on, immediately. Even though it wasn't my fault. Even though I had money in the account. Even though it was withdrawn exactly on the date it was scheduled to be withdrawn. Even though it forced me to go 8 hours and 4 hours without running water with a >1 year old in my care.

Lastly: There is no way to complain. Literally. There is no way to submit a complaint on these people. You just "deal with it."

Best Advice: Stay away from Rapid City all together. I don't even want to get started on the drama with the Trash company (Who refused to pickup the previous tenants extra trash can while charging me for it) or the jerks who send people to mow your yard without warning, without following the clearly defined laws, and charge you $300 for it.

I guess if I could give 0 stars I would. I don't understand how Star Village can go and have $100,000 past due but mine gets $75 over and I basically have to pay 3 times the amount to get it turned back on because our postal service refused to deliver mail to my new address because we moved a few months ago and drops our mail at our old address even when the address is correct on the mail. (Same neighborhood)

Awful servic! When you call to voice your dissatisfaction, the could care less! They are incompetent and then patronizing.

I would also give a 0 if I could. Worst utility company in town to work with. All I’ll say is watch your billing closely and keep a paper trail of all charges. Their billing just doesn’t seem to add up, you’ll end up paying double what you should, and spend all your free time worrying about them shutting your water off even when you’re current.

Paid my bill, and they never came to turn on my water. Now it's the weekend and they probably won't come till Monday. This is ridiculous, I was told at office it would be today.

The way this company preys on their customers should be criminal.Its long overdue for the local citizens this company, “serves”, to speak with our representatives against these unfair policies! City utilities shouldn’t work against their community, simply because there’s no competition.

Perhaps the single worst “customer service” I’ve ever received.