Verizon at Home

[#1]

If you're like me, you purchase your airline tickets on-line and reserve a hotel and rental car via the Internet.  Chances are good that you also obtain real-time online flight updates on the day of your travel using a personal digital assistant, cell phone or your computer. 

Consumers increasingly are managing their service needs themselves, at a time and place of their choosing, instead of working with a so-called middle man.

At Verizon, we believe that makes a lot of sense. 

We already provide consumers with industry leading broadband, TV and voice service.  It's become very apparent that customers are expert at using them to be more productive in managing their personal and professional affairs.  So what if we used those same great broadband tools to give consumers access to some of the same systems our customer service reps use, and allow them to order bundles or fulfill service needs on their own?

Tomorrow we'll announce enhancements to, and an expansion of, a variety of self-service tools that are simple to use and highly effective.  This is something we do want you to try at home - building upon a base of early adopters who have been using some of our tools in the privacy and convenience of their home, office, gym or social hang out. 

For example, the downloadable In-Home Agent tool that provides customers with direct access to an application that performs many of the same setup, management and troubleshooting functions used by Verizon customer service associates for broadband and TV related issues currently tops 1.2 million interactions per month. 

FiOS TV customers use the Interactive Media Guide (IMG) to do various things such as order new channels, movies or premium services, or troubleshoot their FiOS TV set-top box, all on their TV screen.  Last year, Verizon experienced a 40 percent increase in the number of IMG transactions over the previous year.

Verizon's single point of contact, 1-800-VERIZON (1-800-837-4966), has simplified customer interactions with our contact centers and decreased misdirected calls by over 20 percent.  This also serves as the entry point for many of the voice recognition prompts that get customers where they need to be faster.  Today, more than half of the inbound residential wireline related calls to Verizon reach us via this easy to remember number.

Throughout 2010, we'll introduce more tools to make it even easier and convenient to do business with us.  I'd like to hear from those of you who are already using some of the self-managed tools we provide.  And in the weeks ahead, I'd enjoy hearing from those of you who start using some of our enhanced customer service tools for the first time.

[#2]

I just got an ad on my computer when I accessed the verizon sign-in web page about the new in-home agent. To make a long story short, every link I have followed to get to this agent leads me to ERROR 404 - "page not found".

All the references ultimately lead to the same ad page that I first saw. When I click on the download link,  the "page not found" message appears.

HELP!!!

Sam

[#3]

Sam,

Try this link: http://www22.verizon.com/residentialhelp/inhomeagent

I just downloaded it from there just fine.

Justin