Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004/08/19 - ADMIN - Minutes - Community Technology Advisory Commission - RegularOFFICIAL MINUTES ST. LOUIS PARK TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION MEETING OF AUGUST 19, 2004 7:00 PM ST. LOUIS PARK COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Bruce Browning, Dale Hartman, Ken Huiras, Bob Jacobson, Mary Jean Overend and Rolf Peterson MEMBERS ABSENT: Rick Dworsky STAFF PRESENT: Reg Dunlap, Civic TV Coordinator; John McHugh, Community TV Coordinator OTHERS PRESENT: Arlen Mattern, Time Warner Cable Public Affairs Administrator; Lisa Bruha, Time Warner Cable Director of Customer Service 1. Call to Order Chair Huiras called the meeting to order at 7:05 PM. 2. Roll Call Present at roll call were Commissioners Browning, Hartman, Huiras, Jacobson, and Overend. (Commissioner Peterson arrived about 7:20 P.M.). 3. Approval of Minutes for May 6, 2004 Chair Huiras noted that in the minutes there were three motions made without seconds that should be fixed. Mr. Dunlap stated the meeting was not recorded, but he would look at his notes and make amendments. It was moved by Commissioner Browning, seconded by Commissioner Jacobson, to approve the minutes of May 6, 2004, as amended. The motion passed 6-0. 4. Adoption of Agenda 5. Old Business A. Renewal update Mr. McHugh presented a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the business points that Time Warner and the City had been discussing. Commissioner Jacobson asked how to address rapid technology changes, if the City got into a long-term agreement. Mr. McHugh responded that the City had been considering a ten-year renewal with an evaluation period in year seven. Mr. McHugh said there is no guarantee that even five years from now Time Warner Cable would be the operator of this system because it could be sold. St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 2 Commissioner Browning asked about franchise renewal lengths in the Metro area, and Mr. McHugh replied it had typically been 15 years. Chair Huiras asked if Time Warner was looking at fewer local channels. Mr. McHugh replied that Time Warner proposed the existing number of channels but doesn’t guarantee the continuation of their local origination channel 16. Mr. McHugh said that the City could assume the obligations of this channel, and that State law allows growth into any reasonable number of channels, provided they were for the same use. The City could get another Civic access channel but couldn’t use it for premium movies, for example. Chair Huiras asked where the City would pick up the cost for city employees to cover local origination obligations. Mr. McHugh replied that the “access fee” on each subscriber’s monthly bill pays for franchise obligations that pertain to St. Louis Park, including the local origination operations. The access fee also allowed Time Warner to recoup the $100,000 equipment grant for the access channels which is split among the School District, Community TV and Civic TV equipment needs. Chair Huiras asked if that access fee would go to the City from Time Warner, and Mr. McHugh said yes. Chair Huiras asked if the City would buy the equipment and van from Time Warner. Mr. McHugh said no. Much of the equipment they were using was bought by Paragon Cable, and their predecessors. The City would use the existing resources, equipment that has been used for 10-15 years, but would replace some of it. Commissioner Jacobson asked for further description of Time Warner’s local origination programming. Mr. McHugh said that the cable company employees had historically covered City Council and School Board meetings because the City did not own a two- or three-camera production system and had only a single video employee. In 1999 the City bought remote controlled cameras, but it was still necessary to have somebody operate it. TWC provided the staff from their local origination department because this allowed the company to use the programming hours toward the franchise requirement of 20 hours of original programming per month, averaged on a quarterly basis. Commissioner Jacobson thought it seemed like mostly documentary recording and there was no real creative programming. Mr. McHugh replied that TWC also covered football games and concerts in the parks, and the latest Council meeting, concert or football game has a certain amount of value to the subscriber. Commissioner Browning asked if TWC shared the van with other communities. Mr. McHugh said TWC currently shares the van with Fridley, but the van is required in the St. Louis Park franchise so the City would assume responsibility for it. Whether there would be use of it beyond what the City envisioned, would be a subject for discussion. Commissioner Jacobson asked for further explanation on the regional studio. Mr. McHugh responded that Time Warner Cable has a very nice studio in the Eden Prairie St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 3 facility that also includes the Minnesota District Head End, the source of the signals for ESPN and the other cable networks. That facility sends signals through fiber optic cables to Waverly, Shakopee, Minneapolis, St. Louis Park and other metro systems. Chair Huiras asked if there were studios in New Ulm or any other place that they serviced. Mr. Mattern responded no, that Eden Prairie was the only company studio. Chair Huiras asked how often the Beltline studio was used. Mr. McHugh replied he would be using it next Monday for interviews with seniors. He described the use as a low level, several times this year, which was why the City proposed a modest amount of use of the Eden Prairie studio and it could work out to be less. Commissioner Jacobson asked for clarification on the word “standstill.” Mr. McHugh replied that Time Warner Cable wouldn’t substitute programming (inserting an entryway security camera signal) on channel 6 in any of the buildings they serve or in any future buildings. They would use the signal required by State law on channel 6. Mr. Dunlap added that standstill was a term that both sides attorney’s agreed on. Chair Huiras asked if they were still on schedule to complete renewal talks by February, when the franchise expires. Mr. McHugh said that they were on schedule and that was what they were working toward, but that the City had the right to extend the franchise for six months if needed. B. Emergency Alert System update Mr. Dunlap stated that he had been working with Lance Leupold, Time Warner’s Director of Public Affairs, and voice announcements could not be localized for St. Louis Park for the digital channels the way the analog system does. Viewers of digital cable channels would see a black screen and wouldn’t hear the emergency message that may come from the Police Dispatch area or Fire Fighters or Police out in the field using a telephone. Based on the latest investigation, TWC could provide a canned visual text message that would say, “An Emergency alert has been issued by the local authority. Please tune to your local information channel for further details.” There would be no audio to reinforce it; dispatchers would not be able to describe what was going on. Chair Huiras asked if they could identify the local channel, and Mr. Dunlap said it was a message that TWC could not customize. One of Mr. Leupold’s suggestions was that they could begin branding and start letting people know that one of the uses of channel 17 was as a local information channel in case of an emergency situation. Mr. Dunlap said he would continue to work on this and report back to the Commission. 6. New Business B. Time Warner Cable Customer Service Update St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 4 Lisa Bruha, Director of Customer Service, stated that she had been with Time Warner since March 2004. Many exciting things were happening in the Customer Service Department and a lot focused on the customers. Technology was making Customer Service jobs easier and facilitating needs for the customer. For example, the billing system now offers a pop up screen that immediately brings up historical account information that used to require scrolling through three or four screens to get key information. This can shorten calls and service the customer faster. Another initiative is called Every Customer Has an Opinion (ECHO), which they are hoping to roll out in about five weeks. When customers call they would be asked if they would like to immediately take a short survey about their customer service experience. Ms. Bruha said that TWC has a 3-4 week training class followed by a “nesting” period where they grouped new employees together with a supervisor, an assistant and the trainer, who were there to offer immediate help. This gave them a more confident rep when they were through training. On the supervisory side, they were providing a great coaching opportunity for the representative. Reps are monitored and receive feedback on a regular basis. Chair Huiras asked what their ratio of supervisor to customer service rep was. Ms. Bruha said TWC has a ratio of one to fifteen, a good number for a call center environment. Chair Huiras asked if the service reps had the ability to immediately request a supervisor’s assistance if they had a problem with a call. Ms. Bruha said they had a “command center,” a central location in the call center where there was a supervisor. The command center monitors what calls are coming in, if representatives are available or taking calls or if customers are on hold for long amounts of time. They also have AIM, which allows a representative to instant message a supervisor with questions at the command center. Chair Huiras asked if the Supervisor could become involved in the call if they needed to. Ms. Bruha responded if they needed to, the rep could ask for help with a difficult call or they could conference in on the call. It not only benefits with the supervisor talking to the customer, but the representative could see and understand the situation and how it transpires and see it to resolution so in the future the representatives were more empowered. Commissioner Jacobson asked how many supervisors and reps TWC employs. Ms. Bruha said they had eight supervisors and about 120 representatives. Commissioner Jacobson asked about the turnover among the reps. Ms. Bruha said that historically in any call center, there tends to be a high attrition rate, an industry-wide problem because it is not easy to take call after call. She was not sure of the exact statistics. Commissioner Jacobson asked how supervisors could be sure the reps are doing a good job. St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 5 Ms. Bruha said they monitored representatives and listened to their calls. The supervisors are required to monitor two calls a week on every representative and coach them. They also randomly walk the floor. There is a quality assurance person who monitors new staff even more, knowing that they need more coaching. Commissioner Jacobson asked how much technical information reps were given. Ms. Bruha replied they had some great tools. A new tool is on-line assistance called Robo Info which has documentation on TWC processes and procedures and how to perform certain tasks. For example, if they are trouble shooting a certain kind of converter or modem, Robo Info lists the key elements they need to check. The rep reads a question from Robo Info, and if the answer is yes, they advance to another screen; a no answer brings up a different screen. Commissioner Jacobson asked if Ms. Bruha had information on complaints that came to the City. Ms. Bruha replied yes, on a monthly basis. They were trying to be more proactive and were starting something they called “repeat Annie’s,” to find out who called more than once during the last week. Commissioner Jacobson asked if they rated calls and about the most common complaints. Ms. Bruha said they looked to see who had called the most, for example if someone called four times in a week. They review that customer’s account to determine if issues were not being resolved, then call the customer. Time Warner also looks at trouble calls. If a customer makes two trouble calls in the last month, they flag it and a supervisor works with the technical group to determine how to fix the customer’s problem. Ms. Bruha said long hold times seemed to be complained about a lot, but that they had improved dramatically. She said one of her goals was to eliminate long hold times. Commissioner Jacobson commented it looked like they were making progress and trying hard to improve the situation. Chair Huiras asked if there had been a change to the phone system recently. One of the complaints said that when they called, they no longer got a menu and went right on hold. Ms. Bruha replied no, the menu had not changed. If there was heavy usage, they would still hear a message. Mr. Dunlap asked if someone called, listened to the menu but did not push any buttons, would that put them on hold for the next customer service rep. Ms. Bruha replied if people didn’t press anything, it went into the main queue. Commissioner Peterson asked how many of the 120 reps are typically working at one time. Ms. Bruha replied it varied; most of the high call volume days were staffed according to statistics from the previous years. Commissioner Peterson asked if they could share another call center in a different location. Ms. Bruha replied that she did not know of any plans. She thought it was something that would be advantageous. St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 6 Mr. McHugh asked if all of their employees worked at the call center or if any telecommuted. Ms. Bruha replied that they had six employees who telecommuted. Commissioner Overend asked if there were statistics on the complaints and if they were moved to quality assurance for resolution. Ms. Bruha responded that she worked closely with Mr. Mattern to resolve customer issues. If a consistent issue was identified, they address it with the department impacted or the one that was able to fix it. Mr. Mattern prepared the statistics and gave the information to her, they then make a determination on how to handle it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Commissioner Browning asked about the training technicians received for going out to their sites, for either cable installation or trouble shooting problems. Mr. Mattern responded that they have a very good training department, with five staff people who train the technicians. Ms. Bruha said the training is diverse, classroom and hands-on along with ride-outs with other technicians. They are not just put in the field alone, they spend some time responding to calls with an experienced technician. The training environment was moving toward universal technicians and reps that can handle all product lines and services. The reps are taught to handle not only billing questions, but also trouble shooting the internet, digital boxes and cable in general. Commissioner Browning asked if they were being trained to interface home theater equipment. Ms. Bruha said that was a “Catch 22” because it was customer owned equipment and there are liability issues, but that customers were referred to appropriate vendors. Chair Huiras asked if TWC still used a lot of outside contractors, which has been a source of complaints in the past. Mr. Mattern stated that a lot of custom work was done by contractors, however they were training their technicians to be able to do just about anything. If they could, they would direct those skilled TWC employees to do the custom work. Chair Huiras asked if the supervisors had come up from the ranks. Ms. Bruha replied some yes, some no. People assume at times because they are a great rep, they will be a great supervisor and that was not always the case. Chair Huiras asked if there was a regional or national organization of customer service representatives outside of TWC that may also provide training for the supervisors or management staff. Ms. Bruha mentioned the Institute of Incoming Call Center Management, and that she was in the process of gaining a certification from them. In Minneapolis they have a Call Center Networking Group (CCNG), which includes individuals from all different types of industries that manage call centers. ECHO was one of the ideas that came from that group. St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 7 Chair Huiras asked if TWC maintained a report of why customers drop service. Ms. Bruha replied when someone calls in to disconnect, they ask them why and then they code that account so they can pull reports from the billing system. Chair Huiras asked if they could get a copy of that report periodically because he would like to know why a customer leaves. Mr. Mattern said he would guess the majority were people moving out of the area, but he would look into that. Commissioner Peterson asked if hold times were monitored if the rep put a caller on hold to find out the answer to a question. Ms. Bruha replied yes, the Real Time Adherence (RTA) shows who is available, who is on a call, how long they have been on a call and also the status they are in on the call. Commissioner Peterson asked if a customer was monitored after a call is transferred, to the technical department for example. Is it possible for a caller to be in the system, but not monitored, because that could explain the complaints about one-hour hold times. Ms. Bruha said that since she had worked there, she had never seen anyone on hold longer than 30 minutes. They had some instances where they routed the call to the representative based on their skills and abilities and sometimes things would go into a queue and they would pull them out. Commissioner Browning asked about the autonomy the customer service reps had to deal with a problem. Ms. Bruha replied a lot, that they allow and encourage reps to correct problems on their own. If they felt it necessary, a supervisor could become involved. 5. Old Business C. Background on proper uses of Social Security Numbers and privacy policies Mr. Dunlap reported that he researched documents provided by Commissioner Overend. One document asks, “Do I have to give my social security number to a company in order to get services or goods?” The answer was no, but customers may be denied the services or goods because the terms and conditions may require that information for various reasons. Businesses can legitimately ask for social security numbers, but the trend is to get away from those numbers as identifiers. He hadn’t confirmed that State law allowed or did not allow use of social security numbers for this reason. Mr. Mattern indicated that they had always offered an alternative to using a social security number; customers could provide a driver’s license number. TWC wants to make sure the person calling is the person that responsible for the account. They can use a pin number or the last four digits of a social security number and that was all they would ask for as an account number. They didn’t do anything with social security numbers such as running credit checks. It had been beneficial for most of the customers when they had to do research to verify who the person was because they didn’t want that customer’s social security number being used by another person. Mr. Mattern said they also had a tracking mechanism that told them who had been in a particular screen on the St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 8 account to get that information if they identified somehow that information or social security number had been used fraudulently. Commissioner Overend asked what happened if someone didn’t want to give their social security number. Mr. Mattern replied they would ask for their driver’s license. Commissioner Overend stated it was possible that someone didn’t drive. Mr. Mattern noted there were also State issued ID’s. 6. New Business A. Review Time Warner Annual Filings Mr. Dunlap said that he had not yet discussed TWC’s financial reports with the Finance Director, but would follow up at the next meeting. C. Publicity and brainstorming for cable access channels Mr. Dunlap said this was an opportunity for Commissioners to share ideas from magazines, trade journals or visiting other cities, to let staff know about things they should be doing. Commissioner Jacobson complimented Mr. McHugh on his timely email articles, and said he appreciated them. Chair Huiras noted that Mr. McHugh had been sending him the schedule twice a week for Community TV channels 15 and 96, and he found some programs that were excellent. Mr. McHugh indicated that if any Commissioner members would like to get email of programs scheduled for Channel 15, there are typically about 16-20 programs scheduled a week. Channel 96 has four or fewer per week. He would be willing to email a document showing the 24-hour schedule. Commissioner Jacobson asked if they could identify which access channels could use more programs. Mr. McHugh replied it was sometimes a matter of the topic and how big of an event it was. If it was something that would benefit from multi-camera coverage, they would like to be able to offer that to Time Warner’s Production Department because they have the van with three cameras and a crew. Single camera coverage is typical of the events covered at Lenox Community Center or on the Shalom Campus. It depended on the topic. D. Review Cable TV Department 5 year equipment plan Mr. Dunlap provided a handout that began with year 2003 and much of the equipment pertained to the playback system equipment, a big-ticket item serving three channels. In 2005 the plan calls for replacing the Council Chambers video projector with a larger one St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 9 and upgrading some other presentation components. In 2006 all television signals would be digital, if current Federal Communications Commission regulations aren’t postponed. Mr. Dunlap said they planned to be ready by then to provide digital cable signals. Chair Huiras asked if this satisfied Time Warner’s request from the franchise negotiations for an equipment plan. Mr. Dunlap said TWC asked for information regarding what they did with the cable franchise fees, so they toured meeting rooms, the control room, storage and edit rooms and offices to demonstrate the equipment. E. Staff proposal for Time Warner $100,000 equipment grant See above item. 7. Reports A. Complaints Chair Huiras inquired about the first complaint in the handouts. Mr. Mattern replied it had been resolved. This particular customer believed that the equipment had been returned years ago. Time Warner knew the customer had used the converter in 1998 for a pay-per-view movie rental. Mr. Mattern said he believed the customer’s side of the story and removed the line item for monthly rental of the converter. Chair Huiras asked if TWC could disable the converter’s serial number and see who called in. Mr. Mattern replied that was what they did and they hoped someone would call in to say that the box was no longer working. That didn’t happen. The customer still has cable service hooked up directly to his TV. Mr. Mattern said sometimes people take converters off and put them in closets or forget about them. TWC’s inventory system scans the UPC codes on the boxes when they are returned into inventory, so serial number mistakes are unlikely. Commissioner Jacobson asked what was being done about the TV’s that were ready for high definition (HD). Mr. Mattern said an HD converter is required to receive Time Warner’s HD programming. Commissioner Jacobson asked if they had many complaints or problems with Road Runner cable modem service. Mr. Mattern said that once in awhile he would get a call about that but very infrequently. Commissioner Jacobson said that TWC technicians came to his home and replaced a defective cable modem, and that they really seemed to know what they were doing. Chair Huiras asked about the status of offering telephone service. Mr. Mattern replied he hadn’t been to any of the meetings for awhile and didn’t have that information, but knew they were talking about bundling video, telephone and high-speed internet service. St. Louis Park – Telecom. Cmsn Minutes August 19, 2004 10 Commissioner Jacobson referred to a complaint letter dated June 21, 2004 and asked what was done to correct the problem. Mr. Mattern said it had been resolved by giving the customer additional credit. 8. Communication from the Chair Chair Huiras reiterated that meetings for the rest of the year would be held in the Council room and televised. Reappointments were coming up at the end of the year and four Commissioners were up for reappointment. 9. Communications from City Staff Mr. Dunlap reported that they had a new system called the Tightrope Media System which included three videomessaging displays, three DVD jukeboxes, eight VCR’s and a video server. The vast majority of programming on the City channels is now played back from DVD’s. The video server hasn’t been used yet but will playback programs as a digital file. Chair Huiras asked if they could put some of the short videos on the web site. Mr. Dunlap replied they could if the City’s webmaster was willing to add the links and if some other firewall issues could be resolved. Mr. Dunlap has done some research on web streaming Council meetings, but is not ready to take that on yet. Mr. Dunlap said he uses a crawl on channel 17 to announce when Council meetings would be covered live, and that there were many other features in the new system that they liked. He said they were planning to have Public Works staff activate a message when snow plowing was underway, so residents knew when to move cars off the streets. Chair Huiras asked if they could put the meeting schedule on the web site. Mr. McHugh referred to a two-page handout with 54 announcements, which was the text version of what ran on 15 and 96. This gave them an idea of the groups that were sending announcements of activities in the community or nearby. 10. Adjournment Commissioner Jacobson made a motion, Commission Browning seconded to adjourn at 9:29 PM. The motion passed. Respectfully submitted by: Amy L. Stegora-Peterson Recording Secretary