Cable report unveils the known

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- City officials received a long-awaited performance

report from AT&T; Broadband on Thursday that outlines what they already

knew: Customer service is unsatisfactory.

Steve Hayman, director of administrative services for Costa Mesa, said

he was not surprised by the report’s content. Performance in the fourth

quarter of 2001 was worse than the previous one and both times levels of

service were substandard, he said.

The report was one page and detailed four statistics for the Western

region: number of calls answered in 30 seconds, total calls answered,

percentage of calls answered in 30 seconds and the average handle time.

The data was broken down by quarter and listed information from 2001,

2000 and 1999.

City officials demanded performance information from the cable company

after receiving an overwhelming number of complaints from residents about

a lack of customer service from the company.

People reported problems communicating with AT&T; Broadband customer

service agents, saying hold times were excessive -- more than an hour --

if they got through at all. Many residents said they got a busy signal

when they dialed the toll-free number.

City officials originally asked for information pertaining only to

Costa Mesa, saying they were not concerned about service levels outside

of the city, but they were told the data could not be separated.

When the cable company decided to establish a regional call center for

its 1.4 million customers, it lost the ability to break it down by city,

Hayman was told.

“Frankly, our perspective is that if they cannot provide us with

specific information, then they have to live and die by those numbers,”

he said. “Clearly, they have no way to prove to us that those poor

numbers do not truly apply to Costa Mesa. All we can assume is that they

are equally poor throughout all of Southern California.”

The report showed that 54% of calls to the customer service center

during the fourth quarter were answered in 30 seconds, and the average

handle time was almost six minutes. It did not detail common customer

complaints such as response times for calls to be answered and problems

to be fixed, which Hayman had previously said the city was specifically

looking for.

AT&T; Broadband officials may not have offered detailed statistics but

did outline an extensive plan to increase service in a letter that

accompanied the report.

Del Heintz, AT&T; Broadband’s director of local government affairs for

Southern California, identified five remedies to raise the level of

service for Costa Mesa residents.

Heintz said the cable company will reroute billing calls to a specific

billing center -- so as not to tie up the line for service-related calls

-- as well as direct sales people to call delinquent account holders

before they are disconnected. The move should prevent an influx of calls

after the fact and free up some phone lines, he said.

According to the report, 160 additional call center employees will be

hired to field more calls, and other trained staff will be redirected to

the Costa Mesa lobby to ease wait times of drop-in customers.

“A lot of the problems revolve around bigger issues and will not be

remedied overnight,” said Patti Rockenwagner, executive director of AT&T;

Broadband corporate communications. “We may not go from A to Z in 60

seconds, but we can get at least to R and make a marked improvement in

response to our customers’ concerns.”

Hayman is encouraged by AT&T; Broadband’s suggestions and said he

believes they are “genuinely trying.” But he remains skeptical.

“Hiring more people sounds like a nice thing, but it is very difficult

to bring that many more staff members on,” Hayman said. “But anything

that can be done to free up lines for legitimate local service is a good

thing.”

Hayman is the only city official to review the data so far but plans

to meet with department colleagues -- as well as the city manager and

city attorney -- in the coming week.

“By next week, we will thoroughly digest [the information] and

determine what the next course of action will be from the city,” Hayman

said.

AT&T; Broadband has a 15-year contract with the city, which authorizes

the construction, operation and maintenance of a cable system throughout

the city. Contrary to popular belief, the contract is not exclusive,

Hayman said.

The Federal Communications Commission governs cable companies and

their contracts with cities. Costa Mesa has certain limitations when

dealing with AT&T; Broadband, Hayman said.

Dissolving the contract with the cable company would be a lengthy and

costly option, Hayman said. And although other cable companies are free

to compete for service in Costa Mesa, they are discouraged by the fact

that AT&T; Broadband already has a strong customer base. It is not

cost-effective to get the contract from the city and install the

necessary equipment with no guarantee of a customer base, Hayman said.

The best option -- and the option both AT&T; Broadband and city

officials are striving for -- is to resolve the current situation.

* Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 lolita.harper@latimes.comf7 .