TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
Verizon Testing Personal Managers For Customers
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: April 8, 2008
TAMPA - If you've ever wanted just one person at Verizon you could always call directly for help with your bill or your cable TV or Internet - you may soon get your wish.
Verizon is quietly testing a program in Brandon to deploy "Personal Account Managers" to each customer. Here's how it works: Each new FiOS TV-phone-Internet customer receives the name of an individual "PAM," as Verizon is calling them, plus a refrigerator magnet with the manager's cell phone number and e-mail address.
Those representatives carry BlackBerry cell phones to remain in touch. They work six days a week, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and will take on customer problems and resolve them within the Verizon system, then call customers back. Each one has responsibility for 800 customers.
They receive a base pay, but they can make a bonus of up to 50 percent of their pay based on just one score: customer satisfaction with them individually. PAMs are contractors hired by Verizon especially for this test project.
It's a pilot project being done only in Tampa to try new approaches to customer service. So far, customers can't request PAMs unless they're in the rollout areas.
There are 33 PAMs assigned to Brandon for this first phase. The project seems to be going well, Verizon officials say, and the company plans to deploy enough to cover all of Verizon's FiOS coverage areas by the end of May.
TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online Member Agreement | Privacy Statement | Work With Us
