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Google apparently wants its Fiber service not just to be the fastest Internet service in the market, but also the one with the best customer service and support.
The company has launched a new Google Fiber Academy in the metro Atlanta area to train installers on how to deliver high-quality customer service when installing Fiber in their homes.
Google plans on using the facility to train in-home installers employed by Google Fiber vendors around the country on how to handle customer issues related to the service. In addition to courses focused on customer service, the Fiber Academy will also offer courses on the best techniques for installing Fiber and demoing the technology to new customers.
“As Google Fiber grows, our mission is to keep our customer service standards high across all of our Fiber cities,” Alana Karen, director of customer service at Google Fiber said in a blog post Sept. 16.
Since it began rolling out Google Fiber, the company has been working to keep service calls and customer hold times to a minimum, Karen said. Visitors to Google Fiber service centers in cities where the service is available currently have average wait times of less than one minute before being helped, Karen claimed.
According to Karen, call center hold times average around 33 seconds currently while Google Fiber installers have a 96 percent on-time record for appointments, she said. “We’ve had the opportunity to build our customer service experience from the ground up,” Karen noted. “Now, the Fiber Academy will enable us to exceed your expectations as we grow.”
Google’s launch of Fiber Academy comes amid the continuing rollout of the service in different areas of the country.
Just last week, the company disclosed plans to bring the gigabit Internet service to San Diego and Irvine in California and to the Louisville, Ky., metro areas. Google is engaged in talks with local officials in all three metro areas to understand the factors that could affect implementation and delivery of the Google Fiber service.
Since launching the service in Provo, Utah; Austin, Texas; and Kansas City about two years ago, Google has announced plans to bring the service to a total of more than four-dozen cities across 15 major metro areas around the United States.
Google has claimed that its Fiber service is about 100 times faster than the fastest Internet service currently available in the country. Though the Fiber service affects only a tiny fraction of the overall market for high-speed Internet services, it has already rattled some cable giants enough to cause them to respond.
For instance, according to a report in Time magazine, just after Google announced plans to introduce the service in Charlotte, N.C., Time Warner Cable announced that it would bump up Internet speeds for subscribers in the area by up to six times. The same thing happened in Kansas City, where AT&T said it would give subscribers access to 1 gigabit Internet service for $70 a month, or exactly Google’s price for the service, Time said.