Advanced Communications and Information Technology - Joint

She's a quorum revive take their seats will get this thing started. Welcome to the first inter meeting of the Joint Committee on Advanced Communications and information technology of. Cochairman makes do you have any comments. Okay. We. Okay. Okay. Everybody in their seats okay we have a little bit of business forget the presentations of the chair will. Entertain a motion to approve the minutes of September twelfth. Okay so moved by co chair makes and second by vice chair or any discussion all in favor say aye aye aye opposed thank you we also need to adopt this approval special expenses incurred by the Committee answer motion to do that. Moved by Senator Chesterfield second by representative makes a discussion on favor say aye. Posed thank you okay we want to have a presentation by our telecommunication companies regarding customer experience of before we invite the witnesses senator Phil do you have any opening comments you'd like to make. Thank. I thank all of the participants for being here today I've had an opportunity to meet with some of them before the meeting. One of the most important things we should do is legislate tors Is to facilitate services for the constituents that we represent. And the telecommunication companies or an integral part of the experience of every citizen or should be in this state and as a result my concern has been customer service making sure that the the a citizen is going to experiences that which will allow them to communicate effectively with the company and to also have a good result in their services so with that in mind Mister chair a thank you so very much to you and a chairman Meeks for allowing me to ask these individuals to come today to visit with us about customer service what they are doing to improve it and to make sure that we as as senators don't get a different level of care or as representatives a different level of care than Joe blow citizen because we're not gonna always be here and we ought to be able to be able to communicate well and to get good service but what we do so with that as my that's it for me thank you thank you senator I would like to invite the first panel to come up the Mr Nemeth with the Comcast matter fact let's just bring the three witnesses from Comcast and shall come to the table and introduce yourself for the record. And just have a seat and one by one you can push that button to the red light comes on and introduce yourselves. Thank you Mr chairman members of the committee my name is Pete name if I'm the vice president of state government affairs for Comcast central division and I'm here with two of my colleagues to my right we have John Thompson who is the vice president of the customer experience in strategy and next to him is Amy Averell who is the vice president of regulatory affairs for Comcast John is our subject matter expert as a city does customer experience and he's going to help explain to you how important customer experience and customer services to Comcast okay thank you Mr name within Mr Thompson I guess you're recognized. You're wrong when it's red counted. A good morning my name's John Thompson on the move your microphone just a little closer to you okay thank you is that better yes Sir my name's John Thompson I'm the vice president of customer experience strategy for Comcast. Okay. You may proceed or or to quit entities miss April. Thank you Mr chairman any Averell vice president of regulatory affairs Comcast central division thank you you're recognized Mister Thompson. So as I stated on the vice president of customer experience strategy for Comcast central division and I've been with Comcast for thirty years and have spent the majority of that time in customer care operations and now this customer experience strategy role and during that time a lot has changed with customer care but about eight years ago Comcast made a commitment to a program called the net promoter system and. What we do is we use customer and employee feedback to look for ways to continuously improve the customer experience. And my team's role is to use that feedback and bring it to life. The improvements coming out of the feedback have ranged from product enhancements like our voice remote. A policy and process changes and enhancements on our website and our apps. Today we offer more than a dozen ways of for customers to interact with us and we are constantly investing in ways to provide our customers with choice and control and how they get support from us we offer twenty four seven support for calls and chats we have retail stores in the area. And we have team supporting customers over email and social media. We also offer digital self service options in our interactive voice response system also known as an IV are on our website in interaction the ballot. You know I can provide additional the details about support we provide in everyday moments and during natural disasters like the most recent tornado Communities. The Comcast team is here and in the community working hard. To help the recovery efforts and I am incredibly proud proud of our engineering and technical operations team. They mobilized immediately bringing in twenty six out of state crews to assess the extensive damage to our network. Rebuild nearly fifteen miles of cable plants and restore services to more than six thousand homes and businesses in nineteen days. That was completed in a record time a project of that magnitude would typically take several months to complete. During the restoration we also opened our Xfinity wifi hotspots for the Little Rock area for both our customers and our non customers so they could stand contact with their loved ones. We are very proud of that this teams are teams response and support for the whole community. No one of the things that happens when we do an assessment is while we're walking the area will identify homes that were severely damaged or destroyed. that's kind of step one in the assessments. I'm what are process was essentially is any home that we found like that we proactively suspended the customer's billing and notified them via email so they would not have to worry about it. we also piloted something in IV are where we bypass the typical outage message when somebody's gone through a disaster like that they're often have to report things like damage to their home or damage to cable outside of their home they could be impacting their service so too because if you days to build it and test it and then ultimately deploy it but we think that the approach is good for customers and we're working for a under way to activate it even more quickly when it's used in the future. the last thing I wanted to share is that. we know that customers were without service while we did this rebuild activity and we will we're in the process right now of calculating credits for customers who were impacted in we will similar to that suspended accounts we will be notifying those customers via email in advance so they can be aware of that before they received their bill. So once again I just want to say I'm I'm really proud of the way the team responded to the storm and Thank you. Thank you Mr Thompson of we have some questions from members of the committee Senator Chesterfield you're recognized thank you so much and. John thank you so much for all income gas did during this particular period because a large amount of money I can spend large number of my constituents were impacted. But I what I wanted to visit about today was the day to day things. And it does not make sense that I cannot get through to a person. Because your artificial intelligence whatever you guys call it. Is a barrier. And so if I call and I called I get shut if I don't give the right response I just get shut off. Then I have to call again and say. Well I want to cancel my service and I get a person right away. I'm not going to be Linda Chesterfield Senator forever. In this Monday Chesterfield citizen I want to be able to access a person. Who is language fluency. That will allow me to communicate. I in a positive way so that I can resolve my issues and that's one of the reasons I wanted to visit with you all today is because what you have done great work and I appreciate it so very much in these areas where we have had this huge impact from from the tornado. But the day to day life of a person is dependent upon the service he or she receives so I'd like for you to address that and what you're going to do to improve customer interaction because now it's a huge barrier if you just trying to go to the prompts. Well thank you for the question senator let me start by at a high level explaining how or of your works. So the first step is we have to confirm the account number that the customer is calling about in typically the system is able to do that because it recognizes the phone number associated with the account. After the we do that we then have a prompt that promotes the ability to use our Xfinity assistant and offers to tax the customer a link so that you can use self service. Next we ask the customer the reason for why they're calling and that's important because when we finally route you to us each year we want to make sure that it's the right agent who can take care of you properly. based on the customer's answer we will offer self service options it may be appropriate based on the call type so for example if you're calling about a billing question will offer if you want to hear your balance to make a payment Mr for Mister Thompson I I'm asking once but we have a acoustic problem here I'm sorry we're consultants come come and help us fix it but if you could just move the Mike a little closer to your mouth we're it's a big room and a lot of people are in the corner so thank you for doing that my apologies that's much better okay. it the last thing I was just saying that if the customer has a billing issue will offer some self service options hearing their balance make a payment or if they have other questions if the customer selects other questions we complete the office the education process in and route the customer to an agent I think specifically what the senators talking about has to do when a customer is calling and they're part of an outage area and one of the things that against taking you back a little bit when I B. R. systems were first introduced prior we prior to ire I have your systems being introduced what we would do is when a customer as part of an outage we would let those calls go right through to an agent and what we found is that it would literally flood the call center with calls and the wait times became extensive. So as the technology advanced we introduced outage messaging and that's where we play for the customer the fact that there were aware that you're part of an outage and what the X. acted time repair as we've also added the ability where customers can get SMS updates and the outage through its completion and by doing this it allows us to. Keep our agents available to help provide support to customers who are not part of the the outage. The second piece that the senator brought up is about being able to easily understand the person you're talking with and specifically referencing how we we use service partners to help support our customer service model like many Multinational companies we use a combination of in house and service partner resources and. With our service partners we have established a certification process for English fluency. That we monitor and assess constantly to make sure that they're meeting our expectations and provide additional training or in the worst case we remove somebody from the account if they don't meet that expectation. Okay. Senator you folks motion thank you. When the John even if there's not an outage I think what is frustrating is and whatever it is are you gonna be I come today I whatever Rudy. If they don't recognize a parked. They may hang up on you. And so I want to make sure that we have updated the abbey are to such an extent that if you're not giving one of the two or three responses that they're looking for. That we can get somewhere in a positive way so that the frustration level. Is not quite so great. Yes would you speak to that place absolutely so our our intent is to always reduce unnecessary friction and help customers get their issues resolved quickly no matter what channel they choose to of. Reach out to us and we're actually currently in the process of upgrading our IVR in our phone support system which we believe is going to address exactly what you're talking about it's going to enable a more conversational intuitive and fluid experience for our customers in more seamless routing to the proper agent who can help when needed. Thank you thank you Mr thank you senator of other questions. Okay anything from my mother to witnesses yeah I like to add Mr Thompson's comments if not thank you so much for coming hello hold on. representative bear. Thank you I'm sorry Boston let me at any time during this of your allergies do you get any request from the public service commission like any communication through them that suggestions from them may be that you're getting this kind of report or bad reviews from the customers that call. ASA. I can address that thank you. we actually have an open line of communication with the public service commission they a do from time to time has along customer comments and complaints to us I don't believe we received anything specifically from the Commission during this last storm situation of but we are always willing to talk to them and and have conversations with them but with there's no formal reporting or formal process necessarily with okay you're recognized for your communication with them during their spare time you didn't help much if any of we did not but we we can always try to improve that. Yeah I guess my point is Mr chairman. The public service commission is a. Tool for people to use. And the imperative. The customers are not aware of that. But I remember a long time ago for love or do you regulation and this is on a different subject probably the PSC. I have a strong voice in our utilities. In. Almost to the point that utilities dreaded to get a call from the public service commission in. Maybe we need to involve them a little bit more and give them more authority since we are. Offer in our rule customers some services that they've never had before. And maybe we need to look at it providing the PSC with more authority than what they are using now they may have more of them thank you. Thank you representative bear a. Seventy. representative lady you're recognized thank you Mr chairman I'm not a member of the committee appreciates let me ask questions but do you measure Mr Johnson the measure a response time if someone calls about an outage do you have a a measurement of what your average response time is. Yes we do it's ET are expected expected time to repair we measure results first that it really depends obviously on the site the size and extent of the outage are you talking just in general terms. Well I can give you specifics but I don't want to talk about my personal experiences but I mean is it normal for right now okay you all have the apartments upon hilltop here I've had your company up four times I believe in right now my mind telephone my TV system doesn't work and they were called they pour yesterday I believe it was in so that working so I mean to me that's not good response time. That's not telephone so it's not an emergency. But I have gotten better service from other providers that so what what is your average response time. Yeah I I don't first of all I'm sorry that you've had that experience and you know after the the meeting is over I would be happy to talk with you about that and you know work to get that result for you but I don't know the specific average but that is something that we could find out for you. I think that might be part of what center just feels talking about you know is is response and and in being able to go directly to a person if you don't have something that fits the menu that you have. To be able to go to that person. Jennifer could one follow up. You're welcome follow up Sir the second part of center Chesterfield questions about being able to understand the person I understand what you're talking about about service partners which may be in India or China and I've had experience with those people where they spoke very good English but their comprehension was not good of what the language means so when you when you monitor these people the monitor their comprehension as well as their speech. Yes actually I I probably should have been more specific I apologize for that but that's exactly what it is there's there's the contextual side of the language also that they need to understand when they're speaking with one of our customers. Okay thank you. Thank you Sir Senator Hammer you're recognized their hiding over there thank you Mr chairman your words your call center located please. we actually during the pandemic we rather quickly had to move all of our representatives to working from home and the feedback from our employees was so great that we ended up continuing in that model so from an internal standpoint it's a hundred percent work from home virtual organization and our service partners have a bit of a mix of call centers and work from home okay and the employees that are in your call center they located then at their homes in the US relations scattered around the world or in of country other than the US they're all within the US okay very good that's that counts thank you thank you senator Hammer let me of I could Mr trump someone follow up on what senator Hammer ask your partners your subcontractors that provide customer service they could be both domestic or international that's correct but your in house the people who are Comcast employees are all located in the U. S. even though they work from home is that that is correct cation okay thank you other questions or. Representative makes your Mr so kind of along the these lines I got kind of a two part related question is with the both the call center side and also with the the technical side the people who actually show up at our home those both require specific skill sets how are you as far as able to keep and retain personnel to fill the call center side and also keep and retain the personnel you need on the the technical side. Well I earlier I mentioned the the program that our company committed to its called in that promoter system and a big part of the net promoter system is measurement we use around employees satisfaction and that's a major focus of our efforts so we we constantly measure feedback on their experience to do everything we can to retain the talent we have AS in with most organizations there's a learning curve when new people join so you know we want from work at working at Comcast is a career. And that's the approach we take to how we work with our employees in is is it a tight job market isn't hard to find people is that you know is it fairly Our. Early wealth I don't say stock but you know that you know there's enough people to be able to handle the demand and then to that Diallo partner with any you know like high schools or colleges to encourage students Hey you know well look it's down as a potential career paths. Well it's a great question and I wouldn't be able to speak to the technical operations I have less familiarity with that what I can tell you is one of the benefits we have of having a virtual call center operation is it just really opened up the candidate pool from being geographically based right by a call center to frankly across the United States so when we post a position we are overwhelmed by the response to it one of the benefits that we hadn't anticipated but we're certainly I'm seeing from having that type organization okay. Represent makes I can help on the tax side one thing Comcast is really focused on is we have gone heavy into veteran affairs and we have found that technicians who have a military background veterans are the best technicians the we can hire we initially one point committed a higher thousand veterans we need to bump that up from a thousand up to ten thousand and what happens is you hire veterans their skill set they were driving a truck around in Iraq they were using tools is perfect to be a technician for a cable company and they talk to their friends who are also veterans they say you know Comcast is a company that gets veterans they help us out we help them out and so we have really hired all across the country thousands and thousands of veterans and that has been very successful so as we even have a executive in our corporate headquarters who's that a vice president level solely there for Veterans Affairs to make sure that we're treating veterans the special needs that they have after three years of service to our country and we're gonna keep hiring as many as we can and that is we are taxed for stuff. It's great to hear that thank you thank you Mr thank you thank you for that Mr new without think our airline industry is hate Sabin subsidized by the military for a long long time but that's where many their pilots came from and I'm glad to know that the telecommunications industry is also able to tap into that skill set and to help our veterans with the transition to two new careers thank you for that I any other questions by members of the committee. Okay thank you so much for joining us today I appreciate you and Welcome come back anytime. And now we will I have the Mr Chafin said miss lake with Verizon and AT&T if the two of you don't mind coming up sitting both of you sitting up here and that way we can here you for one of the time and then we will He reaches a panel more less that's okay yeah leases come up there so. Share if you will. Hit the button and then five years of the record if you're recognized good morning I'm connotations. Your for Verizon wireless. Okay. A you're recognized thank you have a statement I do I do. Please proceed thanks thank you so much so again my name's connotations I'm the director for redness and programs for our customer success organization that's our customer service contact center part of the of the business I worked for Verizon for seventeen years and that entire seventeen years I've either been in direct service to our customers or serving those who serve customers from operations leadership perspective coming down at all in the customer service base and love doing but obviously we were in business serve our customers our customers at the heart of what we do and all of our decisions whether their tactical long term short term strategic we begin and end with the customer in mind so that we can create I'll get solutions for customers and and move this forward. So when customers have concerns or complaints they come for the organization that I supported and we want to make sure we're here to answer those questions for our customers and offer clarity and simplicity as a as a as a business and as a partner to our customers so the purpose for me today obviously is to cover the customer service processes that we use in our in our company and of the way that we interact with customers and I do we make it pretty easy to do business with us. And as you can imagine customers call us for an almost endless number of things right we interact with our customers across the spectrum of what we hope to be very long term relationship so they can call us about something as simple or they can reach out to us about something as simple how much is my bill one is mine by bill due or something as significant as I'm on vacation I lost my phone and I'm you know out here on a limb and really need some help so we handle a plethora of the entire spectrum of the relationship with customer in customer service and like my predecessor we have multitude ways for our and for customers to reach out to us we have first and foremost we have the my Verizon app and we have our the mind the Verizon dot com website because we can really do anything they want and that they can added device troubleshoot replace device by accessories there's a there's a. Printed and and built in machine there for customers who want to interact with us digitally it was our to reach into that more personal touch because when you are interacting with us in a purely digital space which some customers want we have a chat bot that reaches out and asks if you want to work with one of our messaging employees and that's what a customer would think of as a chat we call and messaging so growing part of our business and there are days ten percent of our volume comes in through that space they do a really great job of bridging that divide of the customer who wants to start digital and maybe doesn't have time to get on the phone and talk to us but they also have the opportunity then to walk the customer through more complex things and sometimes even have the opportunity privilege to teach next time you have this let me show you how to do it on your own or maybe sometimes we have the opportunity to say this is something you would want to interact with us in person or over the phone about we have twelve hundred retail doors and obviously the retail employees are their you know their sales people we pride ourselves though and I have high expectations of those folks that they can resolve customer service issues it's not you came to the store and I'm gonna tell you to call customer service because it's not my problem right we want to make sure that customers who come into the store are served well so much so that when the local team had is facing an issue with a customer that they don't know how to resolve we have technology in place where they can connect one to one with a customer service expert and work in tandem real time to resolve the customer's issue on the spot so they don't leave the store with that message of you know call somebody else we can't help you with it and of course we have call centers and customers call us at three four and again the entire spectrum of things customers cost for and we have we let specialized teams within our customer service organization mostly around complexity right we really want to make sure that if the issue simple we get you in very quickly to employee who can take care of it if you're she's more complicated you're gonna get somebody who feels like an expert whether the issue super is overtly technical or maybe it's someone emotional right people we we want to go through train. Additions of life with our customers so we have specialized groups to do that I'm and we do that with our IVR right of pretty polarizing topic I know when I talk to customers all the time who don't love having sent to US have love having to manage an IV are the goal for us and how many are we are in place is really set to an able customers are technology should enable customers and should make things feel easy for them versus complicated right so the idea is we understand who you are and a general idea of what you need and then we get you into the right person quickly where the the alternative might be that we don't know who you are what you need and we get you to the wrong person and now we're facing a transfer you know kind of the it's a it's a the edge of a knife for us as far as we're to we have what's the right decision for the customer so we try to guide customers in the IV are what we don't do those box customers in an I heard some of the previous questions about you know how many times do I have to say representative before I actually get a representative right so we really design all of our technology in a way that enable simplicity for the customer and we don't want any customer screaming into the phone impounding zero to get help from a live human being it's not what we're trying to do and it's also not great for employees who care about to write so that getting a customer on ten as we like to say when they come in because the I mean are frustrated that. So we we work hard to make sure that we're enabling that the cut that our technology enables our customers and and just keep the relationship simple and ideally keeps the relationship long and healthy right that's what we want to do that's our goal. Our thank you and in interest of efficiency I'm going to recognize this lake and then we will go to questions thank you miss like you're recognized please identify yourself for the record. Thank you Mr chairman I'm Lisa lake director of external affairs for eighteen T. Arkansas. You're recognized to thank you hi it's my privilege to be here today just to share some information about eighteen tease customer service in some of the things that we have done and are doing to improve the customer service experience. As you know we provide what we call facilities based or wireline service including internet in many areas of the state and we provide wireless services statewide in our customer care operations are designed to meet the needs of all groups of our customers. In some instances the customer will need to reach us to order new service or sometimes to make a change or add to their existing so. In other instances there are going to be questions about their service or their billing. Eighteen T. we work diligently to provide our customers reliable and dependable connectivity we design our networks in the systems that monitor those networks with the goal of providing the connections that people and businesses need when they need them and where they need them as a result there are many customers that after establishing service rarely or never need to contact us however when customers do need to contact us regardless of the reason we want to make that experience as simple and pleasant as possible for the customer. We want them to be able to reach us when they want to and using the method that is the most convenient and comfortable for them. Our goal is actually that every customer issue should be resolved on the first contact. But being honest you know that we don't achieve that goal every day but it is what we strive for in fact one of the top metrics that are customer care teams monitor look at and measure is how often were able to resolve the customer's issue on that first contact. And we've recently been on a journey over the last few years to try to transform our customer experience both in how we operate and in the culture that we create within eighteen T. in our executives at the highest level and even our board of directors are directly involved in this process so back in twenty nineteen four years ago we actually adopted serve customers first AS one of our core internal operating principles we developed we have developed specific internal reward and recognition programs that are designed to develop in steel and it and sustain that mindset of serve customers first. we're constantly looking for ways to enable our customer service representatives to provide a better experience for customers and we have several tools that assist us with that some of the some examples are that if you're on the phone with one of our service representatives of their provided what we call real time tips and tricks things that help them to be able to hone in on what the customer needs and provide that information we also analyze the customer calls on an ongoing basis so that we can identify issues that need to be addressed with representatives. We learn from our top performing customer service representatives you know when when we do customer surveys and customers have been extremely please we use those as an exemplary way to handle customer service and we also get takes the lead feedback from those front line representatives and some of the changes that have resulted from this include improve troubleshooting tools and those are available to both our customers or to the service rep so if you're doing some type of online troubleshooting we've and we have improved those tools and we've also improved the ones that the customer site service agents that you are talking to use. We've also simplified that customer service agents desktop so when they're on the phone with you the information they're looking at is more concise and simple to be able to actually address your particular issue. We also when there are like broadband outages you know on and we are aware of them like ninety percent of those we do proactive outreach to customers like through text messaging and those sorts of things to let them know that we are aware and to keep them informed. And as we continue to expand our fiber footprint and tried to bring you know high speed internet to more people one of the things we've done is just simplify the pricing on our eighteen T. fiber that that makes less confusion for the customers on their bill it's it's just one of those things that helps make it easier for customers to understand. Some other addition tips that we've implemented which are designed to improve or simplify the customer experience you know we have options where you can go online to pay your bill and you don't have to authenticate it makes it easier and quicker for you to be able to pay your bill we also have something we call smart recommendations that help customers you know based on their specific needs and usage the smart recommendations help you determine what device tops what plans work best for you or what features that you need. We also understand though that customer needs and preferences have changed over the years and they're continuing to change and that includes the how they want to interact with us. We have millions of customers from diverse backgrounds and geographies who you of use an array of services from us so we don't have a one size fits all approach we have several different ways that customers can contact us so we do have a lot of customers that prefer to interact online for those we offer you know AT T. dot com our website his it has lots of tools we also have my eighty T. app where customers can pay their bill update their plans or get support. Additionally for our internet customers we have a smart home manager app it allows easy access to their home network information in one place they can change their wifi network name they can run speed test set parental controls. Look for the solutions to common technical issues and the many other things just through that one at it's easy to use. And we also offer online chat that chat if you begin a check out it will be with the virtual agent but depending on the complexity of your issue then you may end up being transferred to a live agent to help assist with your issue through that Burchell chat. And we know that some customers still prefer to call us so you know we have designated customer service numbers we have a separate number for wireless issues and and our other wireline top issues if it's a wireless issue you can also dial the six one one from your mobile phone to get in touch with our customer service. however you know we're back to that interactive voice response IVR A. I. if you prefer to call it is that senator Chesterfield it is critical to go through that process when you call us up because that's the way we route customers through our customer care systems to ensure you get to the right specialist that can assist with your issue. For example there are many professionals who can assist you with your home. But you need to talk to the right one dependent on your need you know do you want to build a new home do you wanna add an addition onto your home. Do you have a plumbing leak or do you need a new roof. So you have to get to the right person not just to someone who who does things for your home so very similar to that responding to the pot to the problems that we have in our IVR system put you in contact with the right person. It'll help troubleshoot and analyze your issues and that term in the appropriate routing and destination for the person that you need to talk to. So we try to help our customers I understand the importance of the IVR system and how it gets you to the appropriate person rather than viewing it as a barrier to get to a person. a little more about our of your system in our customer call centers handle more than a hundred and twenty million calls per year and that calls that call volume fluctuates drastically depending on situations so in order to serve our customers better one of the things that we have done is when we're experiencing heavy call volume or longer hold times we've implemented technology that allows a customer to choose to be automatically call back when a representative becomes available or you can schedule a time for that call back from a representative. Additionally we continue revising and improving our IVR system to give customers the information they need and want there's there is a lot of information that you can get through the system you know much quicker without having to be routed somewhere else or referred to our website to log into your account for example through our IVR you know you you can call and get your account number if you need your account number. But. Those are just a few things that we've done to try to improve the service through the IVR. So there's the virtual options there's calling us and then yet another way that we have is you can walk into one of our eighteen T. retail stores to get customer service experience and those folks will gladly assist you. In summary of we're aware that we work in a highly competitive industry and our customers have options and choices so we know that we have to earn their B. earn our customers business through the services we provide the innovation we have the quality of those services and how we respond to our customers needs. So that's why we prioritize having frontline representatives who are highly trained in display as sincere interest in helping our customers resolve issues. And that's why we offer the variety of ways to reach us by phone online through the apps the website or by visiting one of our retail stores. However with all that said we understand there's still room for improvement and we view this as an ongoing journey of delivering service that places our customers. Well we continually. Pursue innovative ways to try to do it better. So thank you for the opportunity to share this information about our commitment to our customers and I'll be happy to respond to any questions thank you misled. We're going to a he went is get the queue please do so Senator Chesterfield you're recognized thank you very much thank you ladies for being here today Chasen's I can't know personal dealings with Verizon I think it is finally getting to the country where I live several folks have come by and try to send this that so we're we're just beginning to. Interact with Verizon. Of the mislaid gets almost as as Gertrude St me thinks the protests too much and I say that because I am totally frustrated with eighty anti. As a customer not just shall be are. But in the last several months until I get to you I get no service. I was sent to four different numbers none of which. Is in response to what I needed. And then I remember that I was a senator not just a citizen. And so I was able to call your representative or your lobbyist and got your number. It is frustrating as Linda Chesterfield citizen to know what a great company you have been over the years and to have been a customer of yours for years and I'm going to discuss in this room. But not to be able to get to the right person until I'm able to get to you. And it may be that that's what you plan. Four thank the way you said it is supposed to happen it's not happening that way. If it were happening that way we wouldn't be talking to you all today. It is very frustrating as a citizen to have to to be sent to four different individuals who tell me for different things none of which resolved my issue. So I'm wondering when was the last time you did an assessment. What should be. As opposed to what is. And have you S. Lisa lake citizen tried to use your own services so that you can realize some of the the difficulty that those of us in the Neverland of. I'm trying to to do because. I was supposed to be and service on Thursday. Two weeks later even though the number worked there was no service at my home then when I called you some people came out there right away and looked up everything and everything was all right. That I should have had to go to you. That should have been a part of the service that what was provided so help me understand the disconnect be what between what you are saying is supposed to happen and what has happened because there's still people in my area that have land lines and we're Munger few Neanderthals a do. A help me understand what you are doing to better meet those needs. Thank you senator Chesterfield I'm I'm really sorry for the experience that you had you know some of the details that are surrounding your particular experience but we probably don't want to discuss in public but I'll I'll be happy to to sit down with you personally and talk about the details and and figure out exactly what happened in your situation I don't understand why you were sent to four different of these areas well my frustration level to grow so so great that I discontinue my service the. And then I was told by my security company that I needed to have a land line only to find out that they lied to me too but that's another matter. And so in trying to get reconnected. That became the frustration point in trying to get a new phone a new line trying to satisfy all the stuff that people say you have to have so in doing that I was sent to four different people using four different numbers which just frustrated me to no end so we'll talk about it off and I don't mind sharing my story because it probably somebody else's story as well sure and I'll be happy to sit down and talk to you and I know that you know some of our internal people have but because you called me on I know there are some specific things that may have gone awry with your situation and and we can look at those in more detail and but I really apologize and that's not the norm to your other question yes I have used the service at as a customer you know I've had a issue before with my internet router at home and I have used the customer service to try to get help and actually got sent out a new router so um. Fortunately I guess are unfortunately my experience wasn't exactly what your ceus are yours was on this particular thing what about the language fluency of both of the aware of of the need to make sure the people not only speak English but I understand those individuals with whom they are speaking. I W. M. I'll go ahead since I've got my mind on us to use the notion. Well I'm aware because I know. People like you you've already brought it up and you have mentioned that we do have customer service centers both domestically here in the US and internationally so we have those to help assist you know customers being able to contact us at all hours You know we do still have like the virtual chat or retail stores that you can go to also if you know if you find it hard to not going to talk to you about my experience there but okay go head and but anyway and you know we do pride ourselves on those those customer service representatives being highly trained in very cat capable of taking care of those issues. And so you know all I all I can say to you is that we monitor and analyze the calls from our customers and look at those customer satisfaction ratings that might point back to a specific call. In case there are issues that we need to address in you with the language fluency yes it's critical for us it's a it's a non negotiable that we have employees speaking to our customers who speak the language clearly can understand comprehend the customers and do all of that with empathy and and expertise so and if and when we find it's not happening we move quickly to correct thank you thank you Mr. Thank you representative in it you're recognized. Try again. Thank you Mr chair my question is for you Miss late I've had several constituents ask me about your internet service and parts of my district I spoke to your predecessor but or asking her specifically how often do you all update your I don't know what you call your master plan or how often you go back and look at your services and see if they can be updated. Because. Thank you for five or services at okay that was going to be my question are you talking about someone that has our internet service but maybe it's not fiber based service and yelling faster speeds yes you know that's just the a complex part of our business plan where we analyze on a continual basis of the places where we're going to expand and upgrade our network. So well I don't have to answer my question to me is there like a yearly theme do you look through your list and see where your words growing the area's growing bored in need might be greater or how do you go about. Figuring that out. Well to your question about is it a yearly plan yes you know like any business typically you set your budgets and your network construction plans and things like that on an annual basis but you know they are continually reviewing information and assessing areas where you know it. There's the there's a reason or a business case to to go into an area like to either expand our network where were not present or to upgrade our services that are already there. Can I give you some suggestions offline sure thank you. Thank you representive and that of. Past co chair makes if you're recognized thank you So I have a again it's kind of a two part related questions I had a an issue when I was a customer of eighteen T. background eighteen T. direct TV days it was a fairly simple at least in my mind issue and it took forever for us to get resolved because we had to go through the eighteen T. the direct TV and eighteen it back and it was just it was just crazy so my question is one of the challenges when you become larger as a corporation it seems to become less flexible a smaller business or you know go all the way down to a guy selling fruit on the side of the highway I can handle price with him where as with all you know eighteen T. I'm not going to walk in and and haggle price you have your or Verizon did you have your have your set prices. How old do you all work with your employees to make sure they have the flexibility to meet the needs of the customers and it doesn't become a we can't do this because we have policy XYZ that we need to you know the policy has to come first no we have to be we have this policy we have that policy so that's my first question is is the flexibility to. The wraps to be able to handle that and then on top of that when they're not you are familiar with let me speak to your supervisor. how often does that happen and then the supervisor have or you know do I need to go to my supervisor's supervisor or do I need to call my state representative to get all the light you know how like Senator Chesterfield likes someone if you can address those to the the flexibility aspect of it and then the ability to get that supervisor because that the average person the average customer rap is not able to handle it. I would love to the first question for us at Verizon we we have a roll we don't put policy in front of people and we won't let it get in the way of a customer we have an opportunity to be flexible and so we hire great people and we trust them to make good decisions with customers in the spaces that they can so certainly there's some regulatory things but when if it comes down to can we extend you know some time for you to make a payment or is there a credit that the customer believes that is are we train and empower folks to negotiate that and have a meaningful conversation with the customer all with the idea at the end of the day that this is you know human beings taking care of human beings we want to take great care of our customer and create that loyalty right if we don't want flexible customers leave we didn't really win right so and then to the to the second question was my gosh for second. When it does get to the point of yes I get this I you know I need to talk to a supervisor because that right it does happen it does and I will tell you that it probably happens most often when we're inflexible and we don't listen right and so kind of we kind of my point that all right we do it yeah we we really view that as a symptom of a problem when and that when a customer has to escalate we have good processes in place we have good people up the chain and we do have a chain of you know decision makers and move along but all of us are held to the idea of six the problem fix the problem fix the problem no matter where you get an organization that's what we're here to do and empowered to do and when we're not in power to do it that's kind of a big part of my role is is are my employees can't fix this problem for customers you gonna go fix that so that we can take care of customers so I think yeah I think that's probably the connection point is one we're inflexible and we don't listen and we don't demonstrate that we care of the customers frustrated or concerned are exhausted then we end up with escalations and we try to address it as a defect but also embrace the customers need to work their way through our organization. Thank you of. Representative Richardson. Thank you Mr S. so I appreciate you guys being here in presenting to the committee lots of good information I have a couple questions if I might I wanted to ask both you both you can have similar fields but it seems to be different kinds of services that you're offering obviously eighteen T. as a large infrastructure associated with direct connection fiber still probably some analog stuff where is Verizon if I'm not mistaken is almost exclusively wireless at this stage right eighteenth he also of course offers the wireless as well so we have different kinds of customers often times that are looking to ask questions right so I'm I'm curious if from eighteen T. perspective if AT&T has different kinds of rounding associated with that our customers contacting you spoke in depth about your app and the ability for a certain kinds of customers to get that kind of service yeah we might also be talking about a an individual who has a hardline still has a standard telephone maybe has a limited access associated with their internet maybe have limit knowledge on on other kinds of things so just curious if the routing associated with a support call is the same as a with a wireless customer that's something that you guys were out differently. So it eighteen T. we actually have two separate customer service numbers whether if you're if it's wireless or if it's or other service and like I said from a wireless phone you can call six one one or there is an eight hundred number that I can give you that specifically for wireless. Then we have a separate eight hundred number you know to call for your other services like your home phone your internet and those sort of things. However when you get into once you make that call and get into our system it's going to route you based on you know what you say you're calling about the type of service that you have in those things so it will send you in different directions. Based on that Intel. Does that answer questions so basically the I. B. R. is still the same I've counted the backside still round in the calls according to customer problems and it's not associated with types of collars it's based on the responses of the customer so in the event that a customer. Is not knowledgeable and has has very little understanding of what they're asking for they just know they have a problem then then the likelihood that they're going to end up with an incorrect routing obviously increases well and there could be some recognition to as far as of the cut the line that they're calling from it may ask you know to verify if that's the service they're calling in reference to or they can enter their account number if they know that. Okay along along that same line are and their industry standard statistical references to service that exist out there correct for different kinds of large entities like Verizon AT&T Comcast for service and and service response correct. That do those kinds of produce those and is that something that you guys use internally to strive to increase or improve your performance. You know I don't know if you're speaking like to FCC requirements and the metrics that non smoking it more of a third party there I've seen plenty of advertisements for water service availability here service there this one's great at this one this one that has trouble you know getting through their IVR whatever happens to be but they rate the service provided by Intel co into an entity's Sir are you guys using those to improve customer experience or at yes we I mean we do a lot of our own you know internal customer surveys but I think you're talking about like the JD power awards in those sorts of things and yes that we use those studies and the results that come those and Verizon we do and also in P. as the net promoter score is someone external ones you know it's it's a. A separate entity and we use that mostly shape long term business decisions from the customer facing level we focus a lot on resolution and yes as a business measure and we don't want our customer service representatives to be worried about how customer will feel six months from now we want them focused on what I need to do today to create a great experience resolve the issue but we do you know we're very guided by our NCS as a business and then the strategic decisions we make. Okay thank you I'm and one last question if I might associated with the language and we had a lot of uh K. concerns around language that language barriers and challenges associated with that I have a very interesting District I have a lot of diversity in language speakers in our district and I was just curious how many different languages each of your entities happen to support from a customer call in perspective because I've got a lot of very diverse groups from all over the world and in my district there Benton County. I don't know the exact number that we support but I'm familiar with the area that you're talking about you know in Northwest Arkansas and I know that we do offer you know some of our service in several different languages but I don't know the number. We have a of and wireless support globally at Spanish and English and on the finance side which would be as familiar in this part of the country Cantonese and Mandarin and then we partner with a vendor called language line so a customer can communicate with one of our customer service reps and get their service in language by using language line interpreter and that's almost limitless as far as the number of languages that we could support using that. Okay thank you. Thank you for your testimony there's no other questions will excuse you and thank you for the input that you've given us today. Next we'll have Mr sandy Stroup from motor vehicle commission and Mr Warren Hamrick with office of driver services of motor vehicles talk about refinancing a vehicle loans. I'm scared to do then for the rates went up. The gentleman. You both know the drill please. Welcome and Identify yourself for the record. Wayne Hammer could ministration for the office of motor vehicle driver services. You're saying district director the Arkansas motor vehicle commission. No gentleman I don't have an agenda on this I assume you all are ready to just hit the ground running and talk about it or is there some Initial questions that we made and centered Chesterfield is already asked to be recognized so should we just go ahead and you all have some in the design for. Center I'm a recognized you and then we'll thank you thank you Mr chair these to Jonah two of them are helpful people in state government I believe. One of the things that happens when one buys in automobile especially used vehicle is you have to. maneuver your way through the the red tape of it all. And Mr hammer construed proved and especially helpful in doing that one of my concerns is being that sometimes the company's of the automobile industry. So do things that are very frustrating I'll put it that way as far as as individuals are concerned for instance we were about to buy a car they did not have. A we've got a Mister Hamrick titled. And I want to Mr hammock and ask him whether or not that was the norm sometimes we don't have titles automobiles. What I found so interesting is that when I went to Mr Stroup to help it get resolved the the Titan just appear the next day. By the very next day. And so I'm wondering how many people are having to deal with some of these issues and what the state can do because there is one other issue that is of concern and that he is the fact that if you finance with the dealer. The dealer tells you you have to have that financing for what thirty to a hundred twenty days before you can refinance with anybody else that's not the law but it allows them to make a heck of a lot of money. And so being one just does not accept that. We had I had to fight to a lot of stuff and so finally we get that done we're able to do that because interest rates that they would charge more eight percent you get it six hours ago with the eight percent. So the gentleman helped me maneuver my way through that maze and if I'm going to that kind of stuff. Then I know citizens are Mister chairman what. Is that process when a person does not have the title Mr Stroup. Tell us specifically what you do that helps to resolve some of those issues that deal with the used car industry and with that I know is after twelve so I'm not going to sit here and talk everybody look at me as if you no show that we can go eat a. I appreciate it very much. Yes ma'am we'll in your situation what we're able to do is. Because of my position I know all of them the players and all the new car dealership as far as used car dealerships are concerned that's under state police of course new car dealers also sell used vehicles and I was able to pick up the phone and call the cell phone number of the GM of that particular dealership and got him on the phone and he got involved in very quickly and honestly was almost solved anyway it was very close to being saw because he actually had the title in hand it just wouldn't it is dealership that was at their corporate headquarters and that is kind of one of the issues that that happens with some of these larger dealerships we have groups that own eight ten twelve fifteen different dealerships and nationwide there are some that only hundred and fifty to two hundred dealerships and so you end up working a lot of times with their corporate headquarters which kind of sometimes will slow things down and that's what in that particular case that happened we found a corporate headquarters we got a runner to but it is and get it to you. But that was twenty days later this means land understand of part of the reason that that does happen though honestly is cars are bought in a lot of different places now because we have a real shortage of automobiles in this country I mean I know that sounds strange we go out look at the traffic in Little Rock to say we have a shortage but we do and if you look at dealers lots new car dealers lots recently in the last two years you'll see that or maybe they used to keep a hundred hundred fifty a couple dealers here in central Arkansas would have over a thousand new cars on their lot at one time they're down to fifteen twenty thirty new cars and that's because we just couldn't produce on the chip shortage the allsorts a part shortage COVID because a lot of the the manufacturers actually shut their facilities down and then when they did a whole lot of the parts supplier shut their facilities down and they had a lot of trouble getting all started back up. And now we're also in the process of changing over electric which is another whole story but because of that because of those shortages there's a lot of demand and and car dealers are going all over the country to purchase cars thank you probably last two years of heard on the radio stations here of that there's a lot of dealers offering to purchase your vehicle because it can come by a written in the normal routine awaits but they're also going to auctions and that's where a lot of times they slows the whole process down because they went to an auction in Tennessee and bought a car in the car may have come out of somewhere in the northeast Maryland New Jersey wherever originally and ended up at an auction in Tennessee was purchased by a dealer here in Little Rock well that titles got to the flow to all of those different places and get to the to the old woman in the. And with COVID again I know that a lot of people use as an excuse but it has been approved problems of the people went home from covid I'm not come back to work a lot of them have a and a lot of as you heard earlier today say they're beginning to work from home daughters the company she works for she's working from home so all of that is just created a slowdown in the whole process it is beginning to get your back up better but it does it just creates a slow down the whole process and because of situations like what you read in into where you didn't have the title within that thirty days our law says my law the motor vehicle commission law says that you will receive that title from a dealer in a timely manner. And then over in chapter twenty seven it talks and transportation to talk about what a timely manner is in that generally speaking is considered thirty days SO up until thirty days we don't really consider it late because that's kind of the norm and that's with the the. The way we've been working it for many many years. So in your particular case you're right at the end of that you were a little over let me say this enemy interjected from a Mister right when you have purchased a car you have thirty days to make your payment. And I couldn't help but notice. That I didn't get it until I had to make the first payment at the eight percent rate. So maybe I'm foolish but I do believe that that had something to do with it we're going to make sure that we make some money first. Before we give you the title to your car and so I don't think I'm being naive when I say that I think that that is a part of the norm because they want to make the money first so Mr Hammond would you tell us about your process and I'm and that this go because I know this afternoon and I appreciate everybody else's patients with me today thank you senator. Yes ma'am thank you senator so the primary responsibilities for the office of motor vehicle is to title and register vehicles for the state of Arkansas so in it's not uncommon that a person may come to a DMV and not have the title but we can still process the transaction without a title as long as they're they'll pay their sales tax of we can proceed without the title and what we do is we put that that case that account into a suspended status until the title until we receive that title and so that's that's one of the positions we took in in your situations that we were going to go ahead and proceed with the registration to get to legal gets on the road have proper registration and the decals for the vehicle and then we kind of do all the background work waiting for the title to come in. Thank you Mr chair both chairs I thank you so very much for allowing this conversation because we have citizens out there that I think of being taken advantage of. maybe it's just my perception. Because if you dilly dallying with that you're making sure that people can't refinance automobiles to get a better interest rate some of them say that you have specials dealership so you have specials but you can't get on if you don't use their company to finance a car with that puts people at a disadvantage as well but I want to publicly thank these two gentleman for helping me maneuver this thing that I've never had to deal with before I've been on the car for a long long time and I thank the cheers well with that I have no more questions. A co chair makes. Follows I've been around this committee I don't think we've ever had gentleman from the department of transportation here for awhile I'm not take advantage of this opportunity And and maybe put a technology spin on it so I appreciate the Senator bringing you all here today there has been some discussion about titles registrations and so forth about moving those to a blockchain technology so that those transfers can happen instantaneously Any any truth to that ours of any movement that from you all know what I'm talking about No Sir senator I'm not aware of that technology at this time for for our our office is that something you all might could look into yes Sir. Well you ask what I was going back to think I was thinking about but didn't want to be so presumptuous as to asking because if you look at our physical paper titles it's one of the few things we do now that is analog and there I say old school I'm I'm not. Proposing something as drastic as what representative makes talked about but but I'm just a I couldn't help but think as we were talking about. That is something we still do the old way where it seems like everything else even including what to Mister Hammer mention how you can you can still get your tags even if you have got the title yet and I'm and that's a good thing I'm I'm I appreciate that but perhaps this is something we should all take a look at I'm not. Requesting that you all do a study right now but but let's talk to secretary Walter and maybe the governor's office and see if this is something that we need to at least take a look at and course first question is what are they doing other states certainly simplify things if if there is an interstate compact to do something like that but like Senator Chesterfield I want to thank both of you all I've had nothing but positive dealings with you through the years and and grateful for your service to our state and. there's no other questions from the committee we will stand adjourned thank you.