Butte, Mont. - May 4, 2015 - NorthWestern Energy is happy to announce the opening of a walk-in office for customers in Great Falls, a step aimed at providing additional personal service options to customers. The office opening is part of a larger initiative to open similar offices and improve customer service across Montana.

The Great Falls office, located at 1501 N. River Road, adjoins NorthWestern's Great Falls Service Center. The walk-in office space has undergone extensive remodeling and is geared towards allowing customers to work one-on-one with NorthWestern representatives on bill payment, account questions, service requests and other company programs.

"We offer a variety of avenues for our customers to interact with us and all of them are important," said Bobbi Schroeppel, NorthWestern's vice president -- Customer Care, Communications and Human Resources. "But based on our experiences elsewhere in our service territory, we realized that many of our Montana customers would enjoy the ability to interact with our employees and learn about our services on a face-to-face basis."

The walk-in offices represent an additional service offering to customers, who can still contact and do business with NorthWestern by phone at (888) 467-2669 or via the Web at northwesternenergy.com. There will be no changes to the bill payment options currently offered.

NorthWestern Energy has operated walk-in offices in South Dakota and Nebraska for a number of years.

"From our experience in those states, we knew that access to a full-service office is important to our customers," said Lori St. Aubin, director -- Revenue Cycle/Customer Care. "The offices also allow us the opportunity to talk to and discuss with customers the details of our programs, from bill-payment options to energy efficiency and safety."

Walk-in offices for Montana utility customers were phased out in the mid-1990s by the Montana Power Co. The functions performed in those offices were merged into a customer contact center in Butte. That operation, along with a similar center in Huron, S.D., will not be affected by the new office openings. The Butte center employs nearly 50 customer service representatives that handle about 81,000 calls per month on average. The contact centers take customers calls during business hours Monday through Saturday and field emergency calls on a 24/7 basis.

NorthWestern has opened similar offices in Missoula, Helena and Billings in recent months and plans to open additional full-service offices in Butte and Kalispell in coming months. There are also plans to open walk-in offices in Bozeman and Havre in the near future.

In Great Falls, the office grand opening will be celebrated the week of May 4-8. There will be daily prizes awarded and on Friday, May 8, a drawing for an Energy Star-rated HDTV will be held in conjunction with refreshments and a ribbon-cutting at noon with the Great Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, local officials and company representatives Visit the office to enter the drawings.

Follow NorthWestern Energy on Facebook and on Twitter (@NorthWestern__MT).

About NorthWestern Energy
NorthWestern Energy provides electricity and natural gas in the Upper Midwest and Northwest, serving approximately 692,600 customers in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.www.northwesternenergy.com.

Media Contact:
Butch Larcombe
(866) 622-8081
butch.larcombe@northwestern.com

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