20170801AVU to Staff 39.pdf

JURISDICTION:
CASE NO:
REQUESTER:
TYPE:
REQUEST NO.:
AVISTA CORPORATION
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
IDAHO
AVU-E- I 7-0 I /AVU-G -17 -0t
IPUC
Production Request
Staff - 039
DATE PREPARED: 0712612017WITNESS: Kevin Christie
RESPONDER: Shawn Bonfield
DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation
TELEPHONE: (509) 49s-2782
REQUEST:
Please provide the average number of busy signals reached by parties calling the customer service
call center by month for each of the past three years (2015,2016, and YTD 2017).
RESPONSE:
Avista customers should never reach a busy signal when calling the Company due to the systems
and services that we have put in place for handling incoming phone calls.
We have 184 phone lines for handling incoming phone calls. In addition we subscribe to a service
from AT&T called Advance Features that provides overflow capacity for 70 more callers. If all
184 phone lines are full, the 185th caller triggers the overflow queue from AT&T.
The next 70 customers are answered by AT&T with an Avista message asking the caller to
continue to hold. Once a line into Avista becomes free, the caller is sent to the Avista phone
system.
If all 184 inbound phone lines are full and the next 70 customers are holding for an available line,
all other calls will be answered by AT&T and are given an Avista message that all phone lines are
busy and asked to call again.
:'irn