6.22.310 Customer Service Hours; Capabilities of Customer Service Office; and Telephones.
(1) In order to facilitate the needs of the local customers, a non-exempt MCS provider shall maintain a customer service office within the City, and which is easily accessible to customers. The MCS provider shall notify its subscribers of the location and toll-free or local telephone number of its local office on its monthly bill. An MCS provider may be exempted from the requirement of maintaining a local customer service office, if the following conditions are met:
(a) the affected MCS provider provides multi-channel service to less than three hundred seventy-five (375) subscribers; and
(b) the affected MCS provider obtains formal Council/franchising authority approval to locate its office elsewhere by satisfactorily demonstrating to the Council/franchising authority, that said MCS provider can fashion a means of ensuring that a customer’s service and billing inquiries/complaints are resolved within the time frames established in this Chapter and that it customers will not be inconvenienced by its not maintaining a local customer service office within the City.
(2) The customer service office shall be open at least forty (40) hours per week (exclusive of holidays).
(3) Within the forty (40) hours per week that a customer service office must be open, an MCS provider must provide office hours either on at least two (2) evenings (after 5 p.m.), or on Saturdays.
(4) The customer service office should have an adequate and knowledgeable staff in order to handle the vast majority of customer service inquiries, specifically including, but not limited to: billing inquiries, refunds, service outages, equipment service and repair, payment of bills and other charges, and inquiries from disabled or physically-impaired customers.
(5) MCS provider’s shall for a reasonable charge, provide customers with a monthly, bi-monthly, or weekly multi-channel programming service guide, listing and/or detailing the programs and services available during the time period. In lieu of providing a programming service guide via the mail, or a newspaper, or third party, the MCS provider may disseminate the information over a multi-channel designated as a program preview or program listing channel.
(6) At least annually, any non-exempt MCS provider shall certify to the Council/franchising authority that each customer service representative (CSR) has taken and passed an MCS provider-implemented course designed to train CSRs to handle their jobs in a courteous, efficient, and responsive manner. The requirement of this Subsection (6) only, shall not apply to an MCS provider who either has fewer than five (5) or fewer employees, or a single CSR.
(7) A non-exempt MCS provider shall maintain at least one (1) toll-free and/or local telephone number to accommodate normal business inquiries.
(8) A non-exempt MCS provider shall maintain a twenty-four (24) hour toll-free telephone number to facilitate calls concerning repair of equipment and extended interruption of service. During any hours that the customer service office is open, the MCS provider must have or make available in-house personnel to address a customer’s inquiries. During other hours, a telephone call may be received by an automatic answering device, provided that the use of an answering device or answering service still results in an initial phone call by the MCS provider within sixty (60) minutes, in order to at least determine the extent of the outage. The MCS provider shall not be required to make in-person telephone contacts to subscribers at a rate which exceeds sixty (60) calls per hour, and shall not be required to make such calls between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. The requirement of this Subsection (8) only, shall not apply to an MCS provider who either has five (5) or fewer employees, or a single CSR.
(9) A non-exempt MCS provider shall maintain a twenty-four (24) hour recorded message, updated daily, which reports and informs citizens of the street and facilities which are, or will be, affected by the MCS provider’s work on its system.
(10) A non-exempt MCS provider, shall have adequate staff and/or extension lines (except during special marketing promotion periods, peak billing cycles, and service outages), in order to handle an average of twenty (20) phone calls of five (5) minutes duration per hour. The requirement of this Subsection (10) only, shall not apply to an MCS provider who either has five (5) or fewer employees, or a single CSR.
(11) An MCS provider will file with the Cable Television Board a monthly report showing that the MCS provider is complying with all applicable customer service and billing requirements. The Provo City Cable Television Board shall approve a form which shall be used for this reporting requirement.