20150909AVU to Staff 106.docx

AVISTA CORPORATION
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATIONJURISDICTION:IDAHODATE PREPARED:09/04/2015CASE NO.:AVU-E-15-05/AVU-G-15-01WITNESS:Don KopczynskiREQUESTER:IPUCRESPONDER:Galen LorenzTYPE:Production RequestDEPARTMENT:Customer ServiceREQUEST NO.:Staff-106TELEPHONE:[phone]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 (2013, 2014 and YTD 2015).RESPONSE:Avista customers have not received busy signals in the last three years. Avista subscribes to a service from AT&T called Advance Features. This service provides overflow capacity above the number of inbound lines on Avista’s 800 Customer Service phone number. Using this service, customers should not hear a busy signal but are answered by AT&T and given one of two different messages.If all 162 inbound phone lines are full, 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 and answered normally. If all 162 inbound phone lines are full and the next 70 customers are holding for an available line, all others will be answered by AT&T and are given an Avista message that all phone lines are busy and asked to call again.