(A) Except as otherwise provided in the franchise agreement, grantee shall meet or exceed the following consumer protection and service standards under normal operating conditions:
(1) Sufficient toll-free telephone line capacity during normal business hours to assure that telephone answer time by a customer service representative, including wait time, shall not exceed 30 seconds; and callers needing to be transferred shall not be required to wait more than 30 seconds before being connected to a service representative. Under normal operating conditions, a caller shall receive a busy signal less than 3% of the time.
(2) Emergency toll free telephone line capacity on a 24 hour basis, including weekends and holidays. After normal business hours, the telephone calls may be answered by a service or an automated response system, including an answering machine and calls received after normal business hours by such service or automated response system must be responded to by a trained company representative by the next business day. During periods when an answering device, including, but not limited to voice-mail, is used, grantee shall provide personnel who shall contact the answering device or machine, at a minimum, every five hours to check on requests for service or complaints.
(3) A business and service and/or payment office located within the city open during normal business hours where grantee provides adequate staffing to accept subscriber payments and the return or exchange of subscriber equipment. Normal business hours shall include some evening hours, at least one night per week, and/or some weekend hours. The grantee may petition the grantor to reduce its business hours if the extended hours are not justified by subscriber demand, and grantor may not unreasonably deny the petition.
(4) An emergency system maintenance and repair staff, capable of responding to and repairing major system malfunction on a 24 hour basis.
(5) An installation staff, capable of installing service to any subscriber requiring a standard installation within seven days after receipt of a request, in all areas where trunk and feeder cable have been activated. "Standard installations" shall be those that are located up to 125 feet from the existing distribution system, unless otherwise defined in any franchise agreement.
(6) Grantee shall schedule, within a specified four hour time period during normal business hours, all appointments with subscribers for installation of service, service calls and other activities at the subscriber location. Grantee may schedule installation and service calls outside of normal business hours for the express convenience of the customer. Grantee shall not cancel an appointment with a customer after the close of business on the business day prior to the scheduled appointment. If a grantee representative is running late for an appointment with a customer and will not be able to keep the appointment as scheduled, the customer shall be contacted and the appointment rescheduled, as necessary, at a time which is mutually agreeable to the grantee and the customer.
(B) Under normal operating conditions, the standards of subsections (A)(1) and (A)(2) above shall be met not less than 90% of the time measured on a quarterly basis. The standards of subsections (A)(4) through (A)(6) above shall be met not less than 95% of the time measured on a quarterly basis.
(C) Grantee shall not be required to acquire equipment or perform surveys to measure compliance with the telephone answering standards above unless an historical record of complaints indicates a clear failure to comply.
(Ord. 1048, passed 1-22-02)