AT&T announced Wednesday that it would begin crediting customers for internet outages and long wait times, the latest initiative in a yearlong effort to revamp the company's customer service.
Starting Thursday, individual AT&T customers and small businesses who experience a fiber outage of more than 20 minutes or a wireless service outage of more than one hour will automatically receive a full-day bill credit. Customers who call the company's technical support line and are placed on hold for more than five minutes will receive a $5 Visa gift card.
The new policy is part of a $750 million investment the company has made in its customer service over the past four years, said Kellyn Smith Kenny, AT&T's chief marketing and growth officer. AT&T customers will also be able to check the status of their outage on a newly created website.
The announcement comes after a year of high-profile internet outages involving AT&T and other companies. Last February, tens of thousands of AT&T customers across the country experienced a power outage that lasted several hours. In September, Verizon had an outage that affected more than 100,000 customers.
The most damaging incident occurred in July when cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike released a software update that temporarily shut down a large portion of the world's computer systems.
Kenny said outages at AT&T had not become more common in recent years and were still affecting a small percentage of customers.
A major focus of the company's investment in customer service has been automation, including the use of artificial intelligence to handle customer service, as well as allowing customers to communicate with AT&T representatives through messaging apps like iMessage. and WhatsApp.
Verizon, for its part, <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-unveils-new-ai-tools-transform-customer-experience” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>announced a new batch of ai customer service tools last year.
