Phone Service Slow To Return After Big Storm

Phones began ringing again over the weekend for US West customers in the Spokane Valley after a summer storm left them off the hook for more than two weeks.

US West spokesperson Sharon Matthews said the Valley was one of the areas hardest hit. Crews worked around the clock to restore service to about 200 residents.

To help catch up, US West brought in 25 additional technicians from Western Washington to deal with the outages.

“Sometimes we have storms like this, so we just shift technicians throughout the state to compensate for the problem areas,” Matthews said. “We’ve always brought technicians from other areas in because we can’t staff for this.”

It took crews nearly a week to restore service to Trentwood resident Becky Graham’s house. Her phone went out after the summer squall thundered through the Valley two weeks ago, dumping buckets of rain and hurling balls of hail.

Graham blamed the delay on reorganization at US West.

US West began downsizing its Spokane operations two years ago. Matthews said the Spokane office has lost about one-third of its approximately 700 employees.

However, US West said the reorganization has not slowed the repair process. Matthew said most of those who left were business office employees who handled questions concerning bills, new services and installation of new lines, not repair technicians.

“We are handling it as well as we ever did,” she said.

But Matthews admitted US West does have fewer technicians in Spokane than a few years ago.

Nationwide, US West is in the process of centralizing into 26 mega-centers. Matthews said the company is still in the transitional stage and doesn’t expect the project to be complete for another six months to a year, but hopes it will make communication with its customers more accurate.

“Our goal once we are completed is that our customer can go one place (for service),” Matthews said.

Graham was upset about what she called the “run-around” she got when she wanted local help. Graham called US West’s toll-free number to report the problem and talked to a customer service representative in Yakima, but wanted to speak to somebody in Spokane.

“If you really want to talk to somebody here, they will not give you a number,” Graham said. “They are just not forthcoming with information and it is not customer service.”

Graham said she called the Yakima center about 10 times before she was finally able to talk to somebody in Spokane.

“I understand it’s a storm and a special situation, but they are not really responsive,” Graham said. “Whenever you ask a question you feel like you are getting the run-around.”

But Matthews said local help is available.

“If that customer asks for a local supervisor to call them back, the customer service representative can accommodate that,” she said.

, DataTimes