How Verizon Is Transforming The Customer Service Experience
It is one of the most frustrating parts of the customer experience: You have an issue with a company, explain it to an agent, and just when you think it may get resolved, the agent transfers you to someone else.
And you have to explain the problem again – and again, and again.
Now, Verizon is trying to alleviate this persistent pain point by giving consumers a single point of contact, reducing the exasperating transfer process that plagues call centers
In an innovative idea that not many companies have implemented, Verizon recently created the role of dedicated Customer Champion, agents who will handle customer inquiries from start to finish.
Under the plan, every customer service call will be assigned a champion, who will work on resolving the issue and updating the customer as the sole Verizon contact.
'The goal: customers only need to call once, and we take it from there,' Verizon said in announcing the initiative.
The concept is creative, potentially very useful for customers and service teams alike, as are the specifics: the Verizon champions will update customers on progress through the channel of the customer's choosing. Research shows that U.S. consumers want to choose their own channels (and that they still favor phone calls, emails, or speaking to agents in person, even with the rise of AI-powered chatbots).
The customer champions are part of a broader series of steps Verizon is taking in what the company calls its 'most significant customer experience transformation.' They include new 24/7 live support via phone and chat, along with a redesigned, AI-powered My Verizon app.
'We are setting a new standard for customer innovation by focusing on both people and technology, using the most advanced AI to make the customer experience simpler, faster, and more rewarding,' said Hans Vestberg, Verizon's Chairman and CEO.
Why Traditional Customer Service Experience Fails Customers
Verizon's overall focus on customer experience is laudable, yet the customer champions initiative stands out most of all.
Research shows that being transferred from agent to agent is a particular source of customer frustration. People who get in touch often have a complaint from the start, and having to get new agents up to speed slows resolution times and can impact customer satisfaction scores.
'The only thing customers hate more than slow response times is having to repeat their query over and over again to different agents and teams,' wrote one online customer support platform.
The consequences for companies can be stark, since more American consumers, driven by cultural shifts that were heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, are switching brands than ever.
With many customers now willing to leave a brand after just two or three bad experiences, transferring someone to several agents could potentially cause that brand-switching by itself.
In announcing the customer champions team and other recent steps, Verizon acknowledged that customer experience in its industry has fallen short. An email to customers from Verizon's consumer CEO, Sowmyanarayan Sampath, noted: 'Across the industry, customer service hasn't evolved the way it should. That's why at Verizon, we've taken a different path — one built entirely around you.'
How Customer Champions Improve the Customer Service Experience
Some issues are indeed persistent. And Verizon is onto something that should help.
The benefits of the customer champions for actual customers are clear. By eliminating transfers, the initiative will reduce customer frustration and increase satisfaction, while improving customer trust that the brand has their back. Dealing with a single agent may even trigger an emotional connection between customer and company, potentially leading to more memorable customer experience moments.
But it is not only customers who will benefit. Verizon is empowering agents to provide continuity and take personal ownership of issues, which could promote accountability and pride within service teams. The result? Higher employee satisfaction and a better employee experience.
It will also give agents more productive things to do. With fewer phone calls to answer, company representatives can spend more time tracking the results of their interactions with individual customers, learning from how the issues were resolved, and perhaps even preventing future occurrences of the same problem.
Key Questions About Verizon's Customer Service Experience Strategy
Amid all of the positives, broader questions remain about the customer champions that will help determine ultimate success. Among them:
What's Next For Verizon
Perhaps the single most important question of all: How is Verizon equipping agents to not just solve problems, but create memorable experiences?
Because that's ultimately the point of this and all such initiatives: Building a remarkable customer experience, something memorable and positive, that creates brand loyalty and leaves customers coming back for more. Verizon is saying the right things, and now needs to deliver.
'You're not a customer number or a case file,' the consumer CEO's email concludes. 'You're the reason we're here. And we're building an experience that will earn your trust, every single day. If we ever fall short – I want to hear about it, so we can get better.' And he provided his email address.
Full text of the consumer CEO's email:
A screenshot of the full email from Verizon's consumer CEO to customers.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
JonesResearch sees Hut 8's shift to ABTC as re-rating catalyst, issues $31 price target
Hut 8's (HUT) Q2 results marked its first full period operating through majority-owned American Bitcoin (ABTC), a change JonesResearch says has effectively turned the miner into a capital-lighter, royalty-style business. The firm believes this structure, built on contractual colocation and managed services fees from ABTC, offers more predictable growth potential than directly owning mining rigs. Enjoying the read? Get our newsletter directly to your inbox on all things Bitcoin-equities by clicking here. Hut 8 reported Q2 revenue of $41.3 million and Jones-defined EBITDA of $3.7 million, missing JonesResearch's forecasts of $50.6 million and $14.9 million. The gap was primarily due to the absence of revenue recognition for 15 EH/s of Bitmain miners at the Vega site. Core fees from ABTC totaled about $14.3 million from colocation and $0.9 million from managed services, equating to roughly $26,100 and $1,600 per megawatt per month, respectively, across 183 MW of contracted capacity. JonesResearch's analysis of ABTC's standalone results shows $30.3 million in Q2 mining revenue and $2.4 million in gross profit (8.1% margin) at an estimated hashcost of $0.047/TH. Low cash G&A of $2.5 million kept EBITDA near break-even. The upcoming ABTC merger with Gryphon Digital Mining (GRYP) is expected to close in early September, with Hut projected to own 64.37% of ABTC, implying a $4.0 billion stake at ABTC's current implied $6.2 billion market value. Hut's own market cap sits at $2.1 billion. JonesResearch cautions that ABTC's pre-merger valuation may be inflated by Gryphon's limited float and prefers to see post-close trading normalize before drawing firm conclusions. Hut ended Q2 with $216 million in cash, but only $11 million excluding ABTC equity proceeds. Through August 6, the company raised an additional $21 million via its at-the-market equity program. Beyond mining, Hut is advancing HPC projects, including expanding its River Bend site in Louisiana from 300 MW to a targeted 1 GW and building a 50 MW AI/HPC facility in Batavia, Illinois. JonesResearch maintains its Buy rating and $31 price target, based on ~14x EV/EBITDA applied to its 2026 EBITDA forecast of $288 million, adjusted for Hut's ABTC stake and potential time of publication, HUT is up 6.4% and GRYP is up 0.8%. Sign in to access your portfolio
The Hill
12 minutes ago
- The Hill
Pence group highlights link between tariffs, lobbying revenue in memo to lawmakers
A policy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence issued a memo to lawmakers on Monday highlighting the sharp increase in lobbying revenue as a result of the Trump administration's aggressive use of tariffs. 'The truth is that Americans, not foreign countries, pay tariffs. American families know the truth: tariffs hurt hardworking American families while funding the very swamp that President Trump ran on draining. 'Drain the Swamp' means stopping the tariff funding for K Street, not growing it,' the memo from Advancing American Freedom Foundation, which was obtained exclusively by The Hill, states. The memo cites a 599 percent increase in tariff lobbyist revenue this year compared to 2024, with the total value of tariff lobbying contracts totaling roughly $8.8 million, according to House Clerk Lobbying Disclosures. It also shows the average tariff lobbying contract from April-June of this year was up 110 percent compared to the same time in 2024. The memo argues that tariffs have hurt the economy, and small businesses in particular. It points to data showing economic growth for the year is at just 1.35 percent, and data showing financial markets are still below where they were before Trump announced a wave of tariffs on imports in early April. The former vice president has for months warned against the potential economic impacts of President Trump's use of tariffs. His advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, launched an ad campaign in April pushing back on the tariffs as harmful for American farmers and consumers. Trump last week followed through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries, with some facing as high as a 50 percent tariff, and top trading partners like Canada also facing steep duties. Those 'reciprocal' tariffs had been delayed twice, first in April and later in July.
San Francisco Chronicle
12 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How a shrunken piece of bread explains Bolivia's economic catastrophe ahead of elections
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Juan de Dios Castillo, covered in flour and sweat, pulled a crisp roll from the cooling rack and weighed it on an old metal scale: 60 grams (2 ounces). That's barely half what it would have been two years ago. Unlike American or European shoppers scrutinizing suspiciously capacious chip bags, Bolivians have no doubt that they're paying the same government-fixed price for a much smaller, lower-quality loaf. For years, you could walk into a government-subsidized bakery like Castillo's anywhere in Bolivia and get a 100-gram (3.5 ounce) roll for 50 centavos (7 U.S. cents), but as a cash crunch cripples flour imports and inflation squeezes budgets, bakers have almost halved the size of their staple bread. Early last year, rolls shrank to 80 grams, then 70, now 60. 'It's like eating a bit of air, a Communion wafer, it doesn't fill you up anymore,' said Rosario Manuelo Chura, 40, dipping some crust into her morning coffee in Bolivia's administrative capital of La Paz. Castillo isn't particularly pleased about it either. Forced to sell his bread far below market price, he's barely breaking even. 'This situation is not sustainable,' he said, slamming the oven door open. Bolivia's many harbingers of havoc ahead of its presidential election on Sunday seem to converge in this shrunken piece of subsidized bread that La Paz residents call 'pan de batalla" — 'battle bread.' The hallowed staple speaks to a state stuck in the past after 20 years under the state-directed economic model of ex-leader Evo Morales, and now struggling to pull itself out of its worst economic crisis in four decades. The right-wing frontrunners, businessman Samuel Doria Medina and former President Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga, have proposed eliminating the politically combustible subsidies that underwrite Bolivia's social safety net. 'I say this openly, I'll remove subsidies because they're the greatest absurdity," Doria Medina told The Associated Press this month, referring to the fuel that Bolivia subsidizes to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Short on dough, literally Legend has it that the battle bread earned its nickname from troop rations in the country's Chaco War against Paraguay in the 1930s. Today, a battle over bread rages within Bolivia, which is running out of hard currency to import wheat because the country grows less than 25% of what it consumes. Struggling to clear a backlog of imports, the government has slowed or in some cases suspended subsidized flour deliveries. Loaves have vanished from shelves and bread lines have started to appear across La Paz. The scarcity of U.S. dollars has also hampered diesel fuel imports, leading to fuel shortages and raising questions about the ability of import-dependent Bolivia to keep subsidizing its staples. Not only do farmers use diesel fuel to power machinery for irrigation, but diesel fuel also contributes to the price of imported foodstuffs. Prices rise and loaves shrink Some two years ago Bolivia had a lower annual inflation rate than Germany. Today it has among the region's highest, with the government reporting consumer prices rose 25% in July from a year earlier. But the price of bread hasn't changed in 17 years. Bolivia imports most of its wheat from Argentina, where prices have increased — along with the value of the Argentine peso — under libertarian President Javier Milei. Bolivia's grain agency, EMAPA, distributes the subsidized flour to bakers at a fixed price while requiring them to sell battle bread for 50 centavos a loaf — about a fifth of what it would cost to bake the same loaf with ingredients bought at retail prices. As the prices of other ingredients climb, many government-subsidized bakeries warn that they are facing bankruptcy. Scores of bakers last month staged a 24-hour strike demanding to sell their bread at market prices. But a quick scan of history from the 1789 French Revolution to 1989 Venezuelan riots underscores why Morales' Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, hasn't dared tinker with the agreement. 'When the price of battle bread goes up, that's the day everything collapses,' said Jacobo Choque, 40, an accountant waiting to buy bread rich in butter from a non-subsidized bakery. The line of Bolivians keen to shell out an extra 20 centavos for better-tasting, thicker rolls stretched almost two city blocks. Nearby, cash-strapped customers scoured an open-air market, swarming around one of the few stalls selling battle bread. 'We used to have breakfast with one roll, but now we need two to feel full,' said Carmen Muñoz, 65, fuming as she queued. 'Let's not forget that socialism brought us here." A subsidy system gone bust When commodity prices surged in 2007, Morales, a coca-farming union leader elected the year before to his first of what would be three terms, harnessed revenues from booming natural gas exports to bankroll subsidies for bread and other essentials. But as gas production plummeted about a decade later, MAS dipped into foreign reserves to keep spending. The model became ruinously costly — last year's food and fuel subsidies made up over 4.2% of gross domestic product. With the government unable to pay suppliers on time and trucks trapped in fuel lines, EMAPA's monthly deliveries of milled wheat have hit snags, leaving subsidized bakeries suddenly without flour. Even as bakers eat into their savings to buy other ingredients, the subsidy agreement bars them from sourcing their own flour. 'Rather than helping, subsidies are hurting us,' Castillo said. Some bakers say that EMAPA — long accused of favoring MAS party members — has stopped supplying altogether. EMAPA denies cronyism, saying it has ramped up investigations into reports of bakers reselling subsidized flour at inflated prices on the black market, or trying to pass off rolls baked with low-cost additives like cassava starch. 'In all my 30 years at this market, this is the most stressful," said Raquel de Quino, a 60-year-old bread vendor who now spends her mornings confronting customers outraged over the shrinkflation and shortages. On Saturday, she asked one angry woman to take her rant to the government — at least for its final week in power.
