Company Contact Centers Need Flexibility To Help Rescue Personnel

According to Al Bredenberg's blog Quriosity, the Times-Reporter of New Philadelphia, Ohio has reported that "police searching for a potential suicide victim were thwarted by a Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless operator who refused to turn on the customer’s cell phone so the police could use a nearby cell tower to locate the victim."

The man was behind on his bill, Bredenberg explains, and the rep informed police that they would have to make a payment on the bill or the signal would not be connected. 

"This kind of intransigence makes me think that Verizon Wireless has been unsuccessful at implementing a key practice in good customer relations: Empower your people to do the right thing for the customer," Bredenberg says. He's right, of course. Assuming the facts as reported in the article are correct, this reporter has to agree with Bredenberg. Surely there's some sort of practice which can be added to allow operators to override certain policies when requested for emergency assistance by rescue personnel, especially where there's human life at stake.

According to the Times-Reporter article as Bredenberg recounts it, "Sheriff Dale Williams attempted to use the man’s cell phone signal to locate him, but the man was behind on his phone bill and the Verizon operator refused to connect the signal unless the sheriff’s department agreed to pay the overdue bill. After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man. Deputies discovered the man just as Williams was preparing to make arrangements for the payment."

“I was more concerned for the person’s life,” Williams told the newspaper. “It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill. Ridiculous.”

 

Not to single out Verizon, this reporter's sure it's not unique in not allowing call center personnel such common-sense options as "disregard unpaid bills if a human life is at stake." This is just the clearest example of the need for such a policy that this reporter's seen in quite a while.