The WOW! Buzz » Customer Service

Now It’s Time to Say Goodbye…..

Bill Wright — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:00:59 +0000

I can’t believe this year has come and gone so quickly. And with the year coming to an end, so will my blog posting for the “Customer Experience / Support” section of this site.

The idea for the New Year will be to combine the “Customer Experience / Support” with the “Culture” and “Education” sections and create the new “Voices of WOW!” These new posting will be from the WOW! senior leadership team, giving you thier perspective and views of what is in the works for WOW!. We would love to hear from you and find out what topics you would like to talk about as well.

Thank you to all that have contributed to the articles and to those of you that have responded!! I have had great time writing these articles and responded to our customers.

Have a very Happy and Safe Holiday Season!!!

Sincerely,

William Wright
CEO Customer Advocate
WOW! Internet, Cable and Phone

Phishing Revisited

Barbara Kubereit — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:03:52 +0000

There’s been a renewed buzz around here lately about phishing so I thought I dig back into the archives for an article I published to educate our customer about this thing called phishing. Click here to check it out.

Is WOW! available for you?

Bill Wright — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:49:25 +0000

The Check Serviceability department ensures every specific address request is measured by the probability that it can receive the products and services offered by WOW! Internet, Cable and Phone. In order for WOW! to determine if an addresses can be serviceable; location of our cable footprint must be known. The most common issue with address data entry is ensuring that every address submitted is clean and follows a DPV (deliver point verification) standard. This becomes magnified when entry of the data is spread over many departments and/or customer care representatives, and a large serviceable area. Bad addresses or non standard data entry can derail the serviceability process and can cause serviceability components (like Geographical Information Systems mapping or DPV systems) to fail. Currently today WOW! has implemented address verification tools to help review the address submittals for data accuracy.
To conclude; the aim for checking serviceability is to instantaneously determine the likelihood that a submitted address is WOW! serviceable. This determination will have the company save money and resources, allowing WOW! to shorten the duration between service requests and the point of install.

Bundle Up for a Great Price and Rate Guarantee

Barbara Kubereit — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 23:21:52 +0000

With 2011 on the horizon, I’m sure many people, just like me are reflecting on the past year and thinking about how to start out the new year saving money. One of the first places my head goes is to monthly expenses. As the end of 2010 draws near, now might be a good time to think about what phone, internet, and cable services you are buying and consider bundling up with WOW! for a better value with a price guarantee. If you currently subscribe to only a single product, the price is not guaranteed. But, if you add another service (phone, internet, or cable) you get a great price plus the added bonus of a rate guarantee through 2013. Yep, that’s right 2013. Keep in mind rate guarantees apply only to the core bundle, so things like al a carte premium channels or equipment may be subject to a price increase. Nevertheless, it’s still pays to bundle up so please call our Sales Department to talk about the great products and guaranteed prices we have to offer.

To Better Serve You…

Bill Wright — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:52:11 +0000

Have you ever had a problem, with a certain company, and the employees always seem to pass you off to another department? How about calling into a call center and, after being on hold for a horrible amount of time, the answer you get is” I am going to have to transfer you to that department” just to be placed on hold again. Not sure if that is a tactic to discourage your complaint or could it be that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing?

In order to give the WOW! customer’s the best possible experience we can, we cross train our employees so they don’t have to transfer you somewhere else where you would have to explain everything all over again. Our employees sit with other departments to get a better understanding of what the customers want. WOW! also tries to hire, for internal departments, within the company. Therefore, the employees acquire a wider range of knowledge to better support the customer needs.

Of course, there will be times where you will need to talk to specific departments that are not the norm for a call center and can only be handled by them. But very few get passed our wonderful front line agents. They are really there to serve you !!

It is Getting Tough Out There

Bill Wright — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:55:21 +0000

It’s getting to be that time of year when the stress starts to hit you. The holidays are approaching, the weather is getting colder, the economy is not doing so well and the kids are coming home from school.
At WOW! ,we understand that people are having a rough time, with all the stress that life hits you with. We prepare our customer service representatives (CSR) for exactly that. They understand the pressures you are experiencing and here to help you, not hurt you. They are living in the same world the rest of you are in (I hope so anyway). If you give the CSR a chance, I think you will be very surprised at what they can do for you to help you through these tough times. Please understand, these CSR’s take many calls throughout the day and every situation is not the same. In order to provide you with the best experience possible, you must be patient with them as you would like them to be with you.

A little kindness goes a long way!!!

http://stress.about.com/od/tensiontamers/a/stressrelievers.htm

Daylight Savings Time Next Weekend

Barbara Kubereit — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:19:00 +0000

Spring forward. Fall back. I remember back in the day, daylight savings time meant an extra hour to party in the clubs. Now all I think about is getting that extra hour of sleep. Not sure what generation you happen to be in, but this is a reminder that it’s coming, not this weekend, but next. 2:00 A.M. on Sunday, November 7th, is the official time to reset your clocks, in most U.S. cities. Daylight savings time shouldn’t affect your WOW! Services in anyway. The time display on receivers and the program guide should automatically update at 2:00 A.M. local time. Occasionally the analog (non-digital) receivers’ time display doesn’t update automatically so all you need to do to fix this is pull the power cord and plug it back in. And, if you’re a night owl and happen to be waiting to watch something on TV at 2:00 A.M., it might be a bit confusing when the update occurs and the guide shows 1:00 A.M instead of 2:00 A.M. Usually though, daylight savings time comes off without a hitch around here, so enjoy the extra hour of sleep, or partying, or watching tv, whichever suits you best.

Delivering an Experience that Lives Up to Our Name

Sherry Zachary — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:50:58 +0000

If you’ve read more than one or two of the Tuesday articles in this space, you’re already aware this is where I get to write about, brag about and celebrate the culture that drives our company. I’ve talked about our core values; I’ve shared our passion for serving with heart – meaning our focus on Servanthood with internal and external customers; I’ve tried to help outsiders understand what it is like to be part of a management team who truly believe our business success depends on the motivation, satisfaction and appreciation of front line employees – those who interact directly with our external customers. AND, of course, I’ve shared all the awards we’ve garnered from third parties that prove WOW! really IS a cut above the rest when it comes to customer service. What I haven’t done is shared with you my personal ‘yardstick’ on how and why we earn them.

What is my yardstick? It’s what we call positive TRs, or positive Tech Reports. These are comments specifically about Broadband Technicians’ behavior and performance gathered from a number of sources: calls to our customer service call center, customer surveys from our website and customer WOW! Moments submitted on our blog. We also have an internal tool that allows other departments to compliment a tech’s behavior or performance too, called the FITS tool.

Ok, bear with me while I take you back in time for a minute. When I started with WOW!, I joined in 2001 as an HR Manager with an automotive manufacturing background. All the other department managers had spent their entire careers in the cable industry, but this was a start-up business so we were all taking a risk. One of the things the technical managers tried to impress upon me was how and why WOW! would be different: we would focus on top-notch service, we would do this by providing technicians with the proper tools to do their jobs, and we would recognize and reward them when the job was well done. As an HR manager, this didn’t seem ground-breaking for me, but I’ve learned over time that it was a major change in attitude for a company in this industry.

Nine years ago, the three senior managers in my region represented over 55 years of cable experience between them. Each told me he could count on his two hands the number of customer compliments their prior companies had received over those years. One of these managers was physically threatened, one had his tires slashed, one had a grocery cart flung at him in a parking lot as he wore his company’s jacket, and so on. Nine years ago, cable companies didn’t have great reputations with their customers.

And then there was WOW!. And here is my yardstick. We have systems in four states, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio and we have about 725 technicians providing broadband service to approximately 470,000 customers. These 725 technicians have earned, this year alone, over 4000 unsolicited, complimentary comments from those they serve. Let me repeat that:

4000+ compliments so far in 2010.

Kind of speaks for itself, doesn’t it?!

Troubleshooting Self Help

Barbara Kubereit — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 18:41:25 +0000

Many of you probably visit the WOW! Customer Home Page but may not have explored it thoroughly yet. If that’s true, then I want to call your attention to the right hand section of the site entitled WOW! Products & Services. When you click on it, it will take you to our WOWWAY site. Although this site is a place for the outside world (non-customers) to learn about WOW! products and services, it’s a also a place for you to get help if you want to do a little troubleshooting on your own. If you go there, you will find a drop down menu on the upper right hand corner that will let you select from a variety of topics like troubleshooting cable, internet, and phone. There’s step-by-step instructions to help with things like getting online, setting up an email account, setting up tv parental controls, and many others. So, if you are having a service problem and want to do a little “self-help” on your own, feel free to check out the site. As always, if you’re still having problems after your self-help exercise, feel free to give us a call and we’d be happy to help.

Local Office Services

Barbara Kubereit — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 19:31:29 +0000

Did you know that WOW! has local offices to serve you? WOW! can take care of all your service needs over the phone, but there occasionally may be times when you’ll want to visit a local office. If you need to make payment and want to do it in person or if you placed an order for a digital receiver and are in a rush to get it, going to a local service office is an option. Here are some of the things you can do at a local office.

Make payments
Order services
Pick up a receiver or drop off equipment.
Get channel line ups and reference guides.
Exchange remote controls.

WOW!’s local offices operate Monday through Friday during normal business hours, but you can drop off equipment anytime in the designated drop-off box. Some offices have drop centers for payments as well. If you need the services of a local office, just give us a call and ask us about it. We’ll give you the addresses and directions and you can see if one is conveniently located near your. Or, click here to view them.