In article <telecom23.558.9@telecom-digest.org>,
Stanley Cline <sc1-news@roamer1.org> wrote:
> On 19 Nov 2004 11:50:34 -0800, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock)
> wrote:
>> My local carrier, Verizon, is running the same risk of becoming too
>> distant from the people it serves. Years ago they had business
>> offices in regions, several throughout a big city. Today when you
>> call them (they no longer accomodate in-person visits) your call can
> What's strange is that the lack of walk-in offices is pretty much a
> Bell/GTE-only thing; practically every phone company that is not one
> of Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, or Qwest -- *including* the very large
> multi-state independents like Sprint LTD, ALLTEL, CenturyTel, and
> Frontier -- has at least some walk-in offices. I wonder what the
> Bells are so afraid of that non-Bells aren't ...
There are two primary reasons (not necessarily in order):
1) Security, for _their_ employees. No customer presence, no risk of
an unsatisfied customer 'going postal'. With ILEC 'quality of
service', this is a _valid_ concern. <wry grin>
2) Cost. It takes nearly _twice_ the floor-space to provide a
customer- service rep with a desk *and* space for a customer to
sit, as it does to provide them _just_ the desk. Plus the
'waiting-room' space for those who are not yet talking to a rep.
Plus an additional staff person ("receptionist") to manage the
queuing before you get to the CSR. Also, space "convenient to
customers" for walk-in business is *expensive*, compared to what
one pays for 'non-customer-accessible office space in the same
vicinity. Office space somewhere 'out in the boonies' is even
_less_ expensive. In addition, there are substantial economies
derived from running one large facility, vs. _many_ small ones
that total the same square footage. Lastly, "queueing theory"
says that the larger facility will have proportionally _smaller_
variance in load than smaller facilities. This translates to an
over-all smaller staff requirement to handle the expected
variations in normal load.
Beyond that, it is a matter of 'priorities'. Is 'cutting costs' more
important than 'customer convenience', or not? Everybody comes down
on a different side of that question on various things. Look at how
few companies have a live person answering the main phone number any
more, for one example. They figure that the cost savings of the d*mn
'auto attendant' are 'worth' the increase in customer aggravation, and
wasted _customer_ time (after all *they* aren't paying for the
customer's time :).
Robert Bonomi (bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com)