An Outbreak of Caring

Last February, she called Verizon's Fios center to fix a glitch in her Internet service and said she spent more than four hours on the phone in one day with service representatives. She was transferred more than 10 times among billing departments and technical service representatives, she said. When she had to answer automated prompts, the voice recognition system repeatedly misunderstood her and transferred her to the wrong departments. After two hours either on hold or being transferred, she was accidentally disconnected from a service representative who didn't call her back.

"I just don't understand why it has to be so complicated," Rogers said. "They are sitting in different places around the country and you're getting transferred from one place to another."

Verizon, based in New Jersey, hired Maguire last November to change that, creating a position overseeing customer service in 131 call centers from Laurel to Bangalore, India. He manages more than 46,000 employees who handle customer issues and oversees an elite staff of 90 members of an "escalation team" that who engages the angriest customers and those who have figured out how to reach chief executive Ivan Seidenberg and other executives by e-mail or phone calls.

Customer service has been made yet more byzantine as companies have merged into giant corporations such as AT&T and Verizon, requiring them to fold many operations into one.

At Verizon Wireless, the company's joint venture with Vodafone, customer service is handled separately from Verizon Communications, for example.

That frustrates customers such as Bill, a Virginia resident who recently called the Verizon Wireless call center in Laurel with questions about his texting plan. His identity was masked for a reporter listening in on customer service calls. In a conversation with service representative Luchanda Briggs, he was persuaded to join a flat-rate text-messaging plan. She and her colleagues have mirrors on their cubicle walls, meant to keep them in good humor.

"A smile is reflected in your conversations. You want to always be smiling," said Tami Erwin, president of Verizon Wireless's Baltimore-Washington region who began as a customer service representative two decades ago in Seattle.

Briggs, who trained for seven weeks and has a starting salary of $31,000, is expected to handle complex technological questions while remaining cordial. Pithy pointers pinned to the walls exhort: "Be Courteous!" "Be Engaged!" and "Avoid the Dead Air!"

Throughout her four-minute conversation with Bill, she talked about the weather in a soothing and polite voice. She credited $50 to his account for extra text messaging fees.

"You've been very professional and I appreciate that," Bill said. "You can tell your boss that."

But when he asked whether she could help him with his Internet service, Briggs said she had to transfer his call, which abruptly ended the conversation.

"Yeah, I'm not ready to do that," he said.