Posts Tagged ‘Community’

Holiday Giving – The WOW! Way

In: Culture

By: Sherry Zachary on Dec 07, 2010 at 9:30 am

Imagine you are the married father of three growing teens and a toddler and you are the sole wage earner in your household.  You work two jobs to make ends meet.  Then within two weeks, your car quits, and both your washer and dryer give out.  The car alone is going to cost over $1000 for towing, parts and labor.  All this happens just before the holidays.

Then imagine you work for WOW!. 

Guess what? 

Your supervisor calls the garage who maintains the vehicles for their office, and the garage owner offers to repair the car for the cost of parts alone.  Your supervisor picks up the tab for towing.  Your teammates secretly hold a meeting and take up a collection.  Their money pays for the parts.  Then they find a replacement washer and dryer set in good working condition and buy it for you.  Finally, they purchase gift certificates and donate the rest of the collected cash toward food and gifts so your family can have a real reason to celebrate Christmas.

This is just one story, in one location, in one holiday season at WOW!.  These kinds of efforts go on all year long when a member of our WOW! family is faced with unexpected trauma and need. 

It’s called Leading with Courage.
It’s called Serving with Heart.
It’s called Celebrating the holidays with Grace

This year, like last year, there is more need than ever in our neighborhoods and our communities.  Please consider a few less stocking stuffers, or a more cost-effective Christmas meal and consider spending your savings on someone else.  You can touch the life of someone who has very little to celebrate this year.

I’ve quoted our CEO in this column before, but it’s appropriate to repeat it here:

“NOTHING FEELS BETTER THAN GIVING.”

Happy Holidays from WOW!

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It is Tough All Over

In: Customer Experience & Support

By: Bill Wright on Dec 02, 2010 at 9:10 am

  It is that time of the year again where, not only does the cost of living go up, the cost of doing business goes up as well. In order to support our customers and deliver the best customer experience possible, some customers are experiencing a rate adjustment this year. We do understand that these are difficult times and many people are just getting by. We all do our best to stick to a budget, especially this time of year. At the same time, our loyal customers must realize that in order to provide the incredible service, you have grown to know from WOW!, rates from time to time will need to be adjusted.  When the station providers increase their rates, we must also in order to stay in business. Also, with the high demand for streaming video across the WOW! network, WOW! will have to invest in our technical network to ensure we deliver the quality and reliability our customers deserve.

  This is not something that WOW! enjoys doing but it is something that needs to be done in order to bring the service to you.  WOW! is always looking for the best balance of the needs of our customer with the very real cost of doing business.

  Happy Holidays to you and yours!!

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Happy Thanksgiving!!

In: Customer Experience & Support

By: Bill Wright on Nov 25, 2010 at 6:52 am

 I wanted to give a little bit of my “Customer Experience” I have had with WOW!.

 I have always known that WOW! was a place that gave back to the community and back to their employees but a few special memories stick out for me.

 I remember a call that came in from a customer that had been late on the payments and having a very hard time getting by. They were just trying to make some arrangements to pay the bill. I do understand that cable TV is not a privilege and you can do without it, in most cases but to some it is the only contact with the outside that they get. I remember hearing that for the holidays, all the person really wanted was new towels for the bathroom. That’s it!! That is all the person wanted was her bathroom to look nice with new towels in it. That really put things into perspective. And guess what happened? Those towels, she had been wantin,g showed up at the home and you will never guess where they came from. What a company!!!!!

  This Thanksgiving, WOW! was able to give 20+ families Thanksgiving dinner that they wouldn’t have been able to afford on their own. An Angel Tree has been set up in the lobby of the Call Center with the Holliday wishes of children. We can’t seem to keep the requests on the tree because the employees are buying and wrapping gifts for these children. 

  This is just part of what I am thankful for. Being a part of a team that when the going got tough, they got tougher.  Always giving and never asking anything in return.

  It’s that time of year when you are supposed to look back and think of the things you are most thankful for. Why does it have to be only once a year?  Why can’t we all take the time, everyday, to look at the things, and people, that we should be thankful for?

There are many things in life I am thankful for and I appreciate them all !!

 Every day, I am thankful that I got out of bed on my own. What are you thankful for?

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To Better Serve You…

In: Customer Experience & Support

By: Bill Wright on Nov 18, 2010 at 8:52 am

 Have you ever had a problem, with a certain company, and the employees always seem to pass you off to another department?  How about calling into a call center and, after being on hold for a horrible amount of time, the answer you get is” I am going to have to transfer you to that department” just to be placed on hold again.  Not sure if that is a tactic to discourage your complaint or could it be that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing?

 In order to give the WOW! customer’s the best possible experience we can, we cross train our employees so they don’t have to transfer you somewhere else where you would have to explain everything all over again. Our employees sit with other departments to get a better understanding of what the customers want.  WOW! also tries to hire, for internal departments, within the company. Therefore, the employees acquire a wider range of knowledge to better support the customer needs.

 Of course, there will be times where you will need to talk to specific departments that are not the norm for a call center and can only be handled by them.  But very few get passed our wonderful front line agents. They are really there to serve you !!

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Serving Others – the WOW! Way

In: Culture

By: Sherry Zachary on Nov 16, 2010 at 9:30 am

The culture at WOW! is undoubtedly reflected by our core value of Servanthood, which we define as “Embrace the attitude and honor of serving others rather than being served.”  The employees at WOW go above and beyond to demonstrate their commitment to helping the people in the communities that we serve.  Last Sunday, November 7th, WOW! employees once again gave a WOW! moment to a very special family by showing their passion and dedication to serving others.

WOW! teamed up with the Suite Dreams Project to raise money for a very special family. The Suite Dreams Project is a charitable organization whose mission is to bring comfort and joy to children affected by serious medical conditions by creating healing environments in their homes and in our communities that improve their quality of life and prospects of recovery.

The wonderful staff at Suite Dreams introduced us to the Zentz family and their adopted 7 year old son, Ben. When Ben was just six weeks old, he was believed to have been violently shaken by a family member which caused severe brain injury. Ben has had numerous surgeries, several strokes and is now legally blind and unable to walk or talk. 

Last Sunday, WOW! held a bowl-a-thon fundraiser in honor of Ben and the Zentz family. Over one hundred employees and their guests attended the event! The Zentz family was also in attendance and spent most of the afternoon thanking WOW employees for their support. Funds were raised through bowling games, raffles, a silent auction and general donations. In total, $13,887 has been raised so far!

Normally with a bowling fundraiser, funds are raised by charging an admission price to the event. We did not feel it was necessary to charge an admission price because we knew our employees would get behind the cause and individually reach out to family and friends to raise money. Indeed they did! Employee fundraising and donations alone generated over $7,000 – half of our overall money raised.

The proceeds from the fundraiser will go towards creating Ben’s healing environment. Ben’s greatest need is a special bed to keep him enclosed and safe at night. He also needs physical therapy equipment in his home to keep him active and constantly learning. 

Several WOW! employees volunteered their own time to design and create the bedroom with the help of a Suite Dreams designer.  Planning for the bedroom will begin in the next week or two and we hope to have the bedroom finished by Christmas.
 

Ready to bowl!

Ready to bowl!

Competitive team

Competitive team

Selling LOTS of raffle tickets!

Selling LOTS of raffle tickets! WT Young, committee member on left helps Shirley Roseman

The rest of the WOW! fundraising committee

The rest of the WOW! fundraising committee

A happy raffle prize winner!

A happy raffle prize winner!

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