Customer service excellence
Customer service excellence has always been a hallmark of Charter Business® and
remains our focus today. We’re strongly committed to you as our valued customer,
and we will continue to deliver an unparalleled combination of responsive customer
care and reliable communications services for many years to come. The Charter family
of more than 16,000 employees has never been more energized to exceed your expectations
and provide cost-effective solutions to further your company’s success.
If you have ideas on how Charter Business could make our customer service even better,
we’d love to hear them. Please call us at 877.470.3278.
Create a Customer Service Culture
Start at the top and let it spread
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A common characteristic of highly successful businesses is the ability to deliver
excellent customer service, which builds lasting customer relationships and fosters
“word of mouth” advertising. To create a stronger customer service culture at your
company, keep these five fundamentals in mind:
MAKE IT A CLEAR PRIORITY
The focus on customer service should begin with upper management and spread throughout
your company. Employees should understand that they work for the customer, no matter
what their job title. Don’t rely solely on your sales people or customer service
representatives to keep your customers happy.
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THANKS FOR BEING A LOYAL CUSTOMER
Thank you for making Charter Business® your communications partner. As a customer,
you are the most important part of our business. That’s why we back your internet,
Phone, and cable TV solutions with 24/7/365 business-class customer support. When
you need us, we’ll be there to give you our best.
As a loyal customer, you may already be saving by bundling with Charter Business.
But if you’re not in a Charter Business Bundle®, you can save with a discount off
the standard monthly rate when you combine Charter Business® Internet, Phone, and/or
Cable TV in one convenient monthly bill. Call 877.470.3278 today.
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TRAIN YOUR ENTIRE STAFF All employees contribute in some way to customer
service, so provide training for your entire staff. When customers have a problem,
they don’t want to be shuffled between employees that are not trained to assist
them. Use role-playing to help your staff handle even difficult customer service
challenges.
EMPOWER EMPLOYEES Discourage your customer service representatives from saying,
“Those are the rules; there's nothing I can do about it.” There is always a way
to satisfy a disgruntled customer. To do so, however, employees must be given the
latitude to take the necessary action to provide exceptional service.
RECOGNIZE AND REWARD Recognize and reward employees who demonstrate excellent
service behaviors. Acknowledge them at staff meetings. Put an article in the company
newsletter. Give them extra time off, tickets to a special event, or a plaque at
a recognition dinner. Celebrate the times when employees go the extra mile for your
customers.
ASK CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY THINK The best way to find out if you’re satisfying
customers is simply to ask them. Formal efforts could include customer surveys,
questionnaires, interviews, or comment/suggestion cards. Informally, talk with your
customers and your staff on a regular basis. Ideally, use a combination of both
methods. As you gather feedback, communicate the results to your employees so they
can use the information to improve their performance.
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Charter Business is Focused on You
Our U.S.-based customer service is responsive and committed to business support
Charter Business® understands that ultimately our success hinges on your success.
That’s why we back up our business services with a dedicated support team. This
team includes the highly trained professionals at the Charter Business Customer
Care Center (CB CCC) and Charter Business Network Operations Center (CB NOC), as
well as our local technicians, field engineers, and sales groups. Together, they
work to make sure your business continues to receive the voice, data and Cable TV
services you need to operate at peak efficiency and productivity.
CHARTER BUSINESS CUSTOMER CARE CENTER
Charter Business customers with a coaxial cable connection receive support from
the CB CCC. Open 24/7/365, it’s staffed by about 135 universal agents that are thoroughly
trained in all Charter Business services — data, Cable TV, Phone, and ancillary
products. They field a broad spectrum of customer questions, ranging from email
difficulties to internet connection issues. “These universal agents are able to
handle the vast majority of customer service matters themselves, minimizing the
need to escalate issues and re-route calls,” explains Jason Alvey, director of the
Charter Business Customer Care Center. Alvey adds, “For customer convenience, our
goal is to resolve issues in-house as quickly as possible. Our average speed of
answer is 17 seconds.”
CHARTER BUSINESS NETWORK OPERATIONS CENTER
Network reliability is absolutely crucial to today’s businesses. The CB NOC was
created to monitor connections for fiber and VIP customers and ensure rapid response
to service issues. In all, 42 engineers and support staff are assigned to the CB
NOC, including Tier II engineers on duty around the clock. Higher-level Tier III
engineers are also on duty from 7 am to 11 pm weekdays, and remain on call 24 hours
a day.
U.S.-BASED CUSTOMER CARE
The Charter Business customer care strategy emphasizes personal contact and responsive
service, and one way to do that is to keep support services as close to the customer
as possible. That begins on the front lines with the Charter Business Customer Care
Center.
“ In most cases, we discover the network problem before the customer does and 80-85%
of these problems are fixed remotely without going into the field."
– DANIEL DAVIDSON, DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING
“Our customer care is entirely U.S.-based for commercial level support,” notes Jason
Alvey, director of the CB CCC. He continues, “We recognize that when a business
calls in with an urgent issue and is already under stress, being able to speak with
a Charter employee, well versed in our operations and policies, helps to engender
confidence in their services and in Charter Business.”
These engineers rely on a sophisticated monitoring and management system that provides
real-time information on every customer connection. An array of Cacti traffic monitoring
servers, which check each connection every five minutes, send an alarm notification
back to the CB NOC if a problem is found.
“We proactively monitor every single business customer fiber end point,” says Daniel
Davidson, director of engineering for CB NOC. He continues, “In most cases, we discover
the network problem before the customer does and 80-85% of these problems are fixed
remotely without going into the field. When a customer does call to report a problem,
they’ll speak directly with a Tier II engineer.”
The CB NOC always notifies the customer when an issue is detected. “We also give
customers the direct phone numbers of multiple CB NOC staff members at the executive
level. This access is part of the true partnership environment that Charter Business
builds with customers,” explains Davidson.
LOCAL TECHNICIANS AND SALES GROUP
Both the CB CCC and CB NOC work closely with local technicians when an on-site visit
is required to resolve a service issue. Davidson notes, “At the CB NOC, we stay
in constant contact with our people in the field which include the high-level engineers
that maintain our fiber network. In many cases, these local engineers are known
personally by our business customers since they’re the same people that handled
their installations.”
Strong integration with the Charter Business sales group is key to delivering excellence
in customer service. For the CB NOC, this often means participation in sales meetings
to address support issues with a customer prior to beginning service. Sales personnel
also contact the CB CCC with work order requests for their customers.
From installation to ongoing maintenance, Charter Business remains focused on meeting
your communications needs.
Tweet Your Way to Success
Twitter helps connect companies with customers
You have 140 characters to post a message that will instantly appear on a free website
potentially accessed by millions of people worldwide. What are you going to say?
And, perhaps more importantly, why bother?
Twitter allows users to post short responses to the question, “What are you doing?”
As a business leader, you can use Twitter to make announcements, deepen relationships
with customers, keep informed, and become recognized as an expert in your field.
Large companies such as Ford, Home Depot, and Whole Foods are benefiting from a
Twitter presence, but it can be useful by companies of any size. For example, a
restaurant can post daily specials; a financial firm can provide investment advice.
As with other new communication tools, there’s a learning curve involved in using
Twitter. Follow these steps to get started.
SET UP AN ACCOUNT
Go to www.twitter.com to create an account and complete your profile. START FOLLOWING
OTHER “TWEEPLE” Once you are following other “tweeple” (Twitter users), you will
see their “tweets” (posts) on your home page.
START TWEETING
Keep your content relevant and helpful, and reply to tweets from others to start
conversations. Use DM (direct message) if you want a post to remain private. If
you have a question, just ask it, and many times tweeple will go out of their way
to research something for you. If this happens, be sure to return the favor.
TRACK YOUR SUCCESS
Success with Twitter is determined by how many followers you have, how influential
your account is (see http:// twitter.grader.com), how many people reply to your
tweets, and how many new customers and website hits you get. For best results, avoid
simply promoting your own agenda. Join the conversation, and be sure to recommend
tweeple you know or have done business with. It’s okay to interject personal observations
or comments, but keep it appropriate for a business environment.
Advanced Orthopedics Sees Charter Business as Backbone
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Advanced Orthopedicsin St. Louis, Missouri recently changed their name from
St. Louis-Clayton Orthopedic Group and moved to a new office. According to Dr. Jason
Browdy, who founded the practice, Charter Business helped make this transition easier.
He says, “Tom Miles, my Charter Business sales representative, worked extensively
with me to evaluate the feasibility of various hosted PBX solutions at the new office
— something that was above and beyond the scope of typical service.”
Dr. Browdy specializes in orthopedic surgery and sports medicine. “I have extensive
experience managing elite athletes and weekend warriors, and our staff includes
two athletic trainers. We’re proud to be a nearly paperless office. We use electronic
health records and digital radiography to improve efficiency, minimize waste and
errors, and provide superior care,” he explains.
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Earn a $50 Credit on Your Bill
he Charter Business Refer- A-Business Program makes it easy to earn a $50 credit
on your Charter Business bill. All you have to do is let us know about business
contacts who could benefit from our services by completing an online lead form at
charterbusiness.com/BusinessReferral.
We’ll contact your referral and handle the rest. Once your referral’s services are
installed and they are billed, we’ll give each of you a $50 credit toward your bills.
Some restrictions apply; see charterbusiness.com/
BusinessReferral for details.
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The communications demands of the practice are met by the Charter Business Bundle®
including Charter Business® Internet, Charter Business® Phone, and Charter Business®
TV. Dr. Browdy notes, “Charter Business is really the backbone of Advanced Orthopedics.
Having a reliable phone system and high-speed network is critical for us. What’s
more, we get these Charter services for a very affordable price.” Advanced Orthopedics
has a virtual private network (VPN) to access medical records from rural clinics
and enable Dr. Browdy to access x-rays, MRI scans,and CT scans from his home server.
He’s pleased with the reliability of their network and its speeds of 8 Mbps down
and 2 Mbps up. “I don’t have to worry about bottlenecks anymore,” he says.
“Having a reliable phone system and high-speed network is critical for us. What’s
more, we get these Charter services for a very affordable price.”
– Dr. JASON BROWDY, ADVANCED ORTHOPEDICS AOCLAYTON.COM
Since Dr. Browdy can’t always anticipate the complexity of every patient's needs,
sometimes others need to wait longer than anticipated. Charter Business® TV has
proven to be a great addition to the waiting room. “TV helps make the time more
enjoyable,” adds Dr. Browdy.
He concludes, “We help patients stay on top of their game, and Charter Business
helps us stay on top of ours.”
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Reliable Service is Priority of Blue Ribbon Electrical
Blue Ribbon Electrical in Kalamazoo, Michigan provides a complete range of
electrical services for primarily residential customers. On their website, the company
promises customers, “We are here for you when you need us.” Their services are available
24/7 and regardless of what time of day or night that customers call, they will
be greeted by a live, professionally trained representative.
In order to deliver on this promise of round-the-clock customer service, Blue Ribbon
Electrical requires a high level of reliability from their communications provider.
More than a year ago, owner Wes Clemons chose the Charter Business Bundle® with
Charter Business® Internet, Charter Business® Phone, and Charter Business® TV. While
Clemons appreciates the significant monthly savings this package provides, he most
values the reliability of the Charter Business services.
“For our company, price is not nearly as important as service reliability — that’s
huge for us. Our customers make all of their appointments by phone and if I don’t
get the calls, I don’t get the business. We must be able to count on our phone service,
as well as our Internet access, since our web-based scheduler sends appointment
information collected after hours to us via email,” explains Clemons. For example,
if a customer calls at 10 pm, a live person answers and can schedule a next-day
appointment.
“For our company, price is not nearly as important as service reliability … if I
don’t get the calls, I don’t get the business.”
– WES CLEMONS, BLUE RIBBON ELECTRICAL, BLUERIBBONELECTRIC.COM
As a company with a strong focus on top-notch customer service, the staff at Blue
Ribbon Electrical is pleased to find a similar philosophy at Charter Business. Clemons
notes, “Our sales representative, Scott Snow, set up all of the services for us
and has been very prompt and responsive to our needs. Charter Business also went
the extra mile and put in a backup system with a 16-hour battery life to ensure
we’ll have phone service even if we lose power.”
Clemons continues, “I really appreciate the fact that we can count on Charter Business,
since when our customers experience electrical problems, they need to be able to
count on us.”