### A Lifelong Commitment to Customer Service

For **over 40 years**, **Jeff Reichel** has dedicated his career to various roles in **customer service and management**. Originally hailing from **Dubuque**, he has successfully managed **hotels** and contributed to the **postal service**. 

### New Beginnings in Dyersville

Four years ago, Reichel made the move to **Dyersville**, where he had already established himself as the **postmaster**. His extensive experience in customer service reflects his commitment and passion for ensuring excellent service delivery.

For over 40 years, Jeff Reichel has worked in some sort of customer service or management role. Originally from Dubuque, Reichel managed hotels and worked for the postal service. Four

Meet Jeff Reichel: A 40-Year Journey in Customer Service Management

## Insights from FinTech LIVE London

At the **FinTech LIVE London Global Summit 2024**, a panel of industry leaders discussed the transformative role of **AI in financial services**. They explored how AI enhances operational efficiency and revolutionizes customer experiences, paving the way for a data-driven future.

### **Expert Panelists**
- **David Palmer**, Blockchain Lead at Vodafone Business IoT
- **Nelson Wootton**, CEO and Co-Founder at SaaScada
- **Pawan Udernani**, VP of Data Tech AI Leader, Financial Services at Genpact
- **Andrew Robinson**, Product Director of Conversational AI Innovation at NatWest Group
- **Isabel Pitt**, COO of Nationwide

### **Transforming Customer Service**
David Palmer highlighted the impact of AI on customer service, emphasizing that **real-time interventions** have redefined customer satisfaction. He noted that **telcos like Vodafone** view AI as a crucial driver for next-gen operations and data management.

Nelson Wootton supported this by referencing **Gartner research**, which identifies AI's key benefits in operational efficiency and customer service. He stressed the need to understand specific AI applications for meaningful outcomes.

Andrew Robinson revealed how AI has significantly streamlined customer service at NatWest, stating that summarization tools reduced reading time from **4,500 characters to just 300**, enhancing response times and customer satisfaction.

### **AI in Fraud Prevention and Personalization**
Isabel Pitt discussed AI's role in **fraud prevention**, explaining how it analyzes transaction data in real-time to detect anomalies and reduce fraud rates while maintaining customer trust. The panellists emphasized that **personalized banking experiences** are vital for customer retention, with examples from Latin America showcasing AI-integrated systems.

David forecasted a future where AI extends to fully autonomous customer interactions, hinting at a landscape where human involvement may become optional in digital services.

### **Challenges in Implementing AI**
The panel acknowledged various challenges in implementing AI, including **data architecture limitations**, **regulatory compliance**, and **workforce readiness**. Nelson stressed the need for **innovation within risk management**, while Andrew suggested involving regulatory teams in the innovation process.

Isabel highlighted the importance of **partnerships** with fintechs to leverage innovation effectively, and David pointed out the necessity for **data interoperability** to maximize AI's potential.

### **Future-proofing FinTech**
The session concluded with a focus on aligning AI initiatives with customer needs. Isabel emphasized the need for inclusivity in AI applications, ensuring they work for all societal segments. The key takeaway was that harnessing AI's full potential requires **collaboration**, **robust frameworks**, and a **customer-first approach**.

![FinTech LIVE London](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ykGcT8_jO8o/hqdefault.jpg)

Insights into AI transforming fintech operations and customer experiences, shared at FinTech LIVE London Global Summit 2024

Unlocking the Future: How AI is Revolutionizing FinTech Customer Experiences

### Celebrating Exceptional Service at Hy-Vee

April Graff embodies **Hy-Vee’s** slogan: *“A helpful smile in every aisle.”* Her colleagues at **Hilltop Hy-Vee** commend her for always wearing a smile and maintaining a positive attitude, while customers consistently praise her dedication.

On a memorable Monday morning, Graff was surprised by employees, family, and corporate officials who announced that she had won the **Legendary Customer Service Award**, the company’s highest honor. With only **13 recipients** out of **75,000 employees** across **570 stores**, this recognition highlights her exceptional contributions.

Jim Banasik, the district store director, mentioned, *“We have stacks of customer comments about April.”* Customers appreciate how she invests time to understand their needs, tailoring diet plans and guiding them throughout the store. One customer even credited her with *saving his life* through her dietary coaching.

Jan Nichols, regional vice president for Hy-Vee’s Sioux Falls region, awarded Graff a plaque and announced that she would receive further honors at a corporate event in **West Des Moines, Iowa**. When asked for her thoughts, Graff expressed, *“This is one of the few times I’m speechless.”*

Unbeknownst to many employees, the award was a surprise, orchestrated with the help of Graff's husband and children, who were present to celebrate her recognition.

### A Commitment to Health and Nutrition
Graff has been a pivotal figure in the community, participating in the founding of the **Mankato Marathon** and contributing a nutrition column to *The Free Press*. With a **master's degree** from the University of Wisconsin-Stout and over **15 years** at Hy-Vee, she has dedicated herself to helping others navigate the complexities of dietary health.

She acknowledges the challenges many face in improving their diets, stating, *“A lot of nutrition information has changed but so have trends and ingredients.”* Her mission is to simplify nutrition for her customers, especially as health statistics indicate a rising trend in obesity in Minnesota.

### Recognition of a True Community Leader
With her infectious smile and optimistic demeanor, April Graff is a beloved figure among her colleagues and customers alike. Her recent recognition for *Legendary Customer Service* is a testament to her unwavering commitment to her community and the people she serves.

— Tim Krohn

Meet April Graff: The Award-Winning Dietitian Redefining Customer Service at Hy-Vee

## The Holiday Shopping Season Begins

Black Friday marks the start of the **holiday shopping season**. While many are flocking to online giants like **Amazon** or heading to malls such as **Garden State Plaza** or **American Dream**, consider the impact of shopping locally.

## Support Local Economies with Small Business Saturday

**Small Business Saturday** is on **November 30**, providing a perfect opportunity to support local businesses in New Jersey. According to the **U.S. Small Business Administration**, small businesses constitute **99.6%** of New Jersey's economy. 

### Small Business Statistics
- **1.9 million** people employed by small businesses, accounting for **48.8%** of the workforce.
- **168,060** businesses have between **1-19 employees**.
- **21,705** businesses range from **20-499 employees**.
- In 2021, **$3 billion** in loans supported businesses with revenues up to **$1 million**.

A recent **Bankrate** survey revealed **50%** of Americans plan to shop on Small Business Saturday. Vincent Vicari from the New Jersey Small Business Development Center emphasizes that small businesses are about **creating value** and providing a **personal touch** that larger retailers cannot match.

### Revitalized Downtowns in New Jersey

In the 1980s, New Jersey downtowns experienced a decline as shoppers moved to suburban malls. However, today’s consumers are gravitating back to vibrant downtowns, which have now revitalized, especially in towns like **South Orange, Maplewood, and Montclair**. For example, **Hackensack** has recently been recognized as a "Great Downtown" by the American Planners Association.

## Events Celebrating Small Business Saturday

Many towns across North Jersey are hosting unique events on November 30 to promote local businesses:
- **Closter**: Holiday shopping event at the Senior Center.
- **Fair Lawn**: Free tote bag giveaway and local artist pop-up shops.
- **Englewood**: First Annual French American Holiday Market on December 7.
- **Mahwah**: Holiday Craft & Vendor Fair at the Elks Lodge.
- **Montclair**: Small Business Saturday event featuring kids’ crafts and local vendors.
- **Nutley**: Participating businesses will host a sixth annual egg hunt with deals.
- **South Orange**: Street fair with local crafts and outdoor ice skating.

![Montclair Shopping Scene](https://www.northjersey.com/gcdn/presto/2021/11/26/PNJM/45822b65-2e8d-4a62-a2f1-9b1fc53c2ec2-montclairshop.jpg?width=660&height=495&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)

By shopping small this season, you not only find **unique gifts** but also contribute to the **local economy** and community growth.  
Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor, and the economy for **NorthJersey.com** and The Record.

“The modern customer wants to be near vital downtowns,” said one expert. Some North Jersey towns have Small Business Saturday events Nov. 30.

Discover How Small Business Saturday Can Boost Your Local NJ Economy!

## MTA Celebrates New Customer Service Department

The **Mass Transit Authority (MTA)** recently marked the grand opening of its **new customer service department** with a **ribbon-cutting ceremony** and open house on **November 21** at the **Northrup-Abrams Transportation Center**, located at **615 Harrison Street** in **downtown Flint**.

![MTA CEO Ed Benning cuts the ribbon](https://davisonindex.mihomepaper.com/wp-content/uploads/images/2024-11-28/1p1-300x117.jpg)
*Photo by Madeline Campbell*

This celebration came right after the MTA announced a partnership with **Huntington Bank** and **United Way of Genesee County** to distribute **15,000 bus passes** to various agencies throughout **Genesee County**, including:
- Catholic Charities of Shiawassee and Genesee County
- United Way of Genesee County
- St. Luke NEW Life Center
- The Salvation Army
- The Shelter of Flint
- Hamilton Community Health Network
- Genesee Health Plan
- Eastside Mission
- Crossover Outreach

**MTA CEO Ed Benning** stated that these passes would be available for clients at each agency, facilitating access to work, shopping, or job interviews. “We are very proud of the passes that went out,” Benning remarked. 

### New Go Pass Program

**MTA Communications and Public Relations Director Stephanie Confer** emphasized the benefits of the new **Go Pass program**, noting that it alleviates concerns about lost cards as the MTA keeps records to assist clients.

During the ceremony, **Michele Loper**, the **Mobility Community Services Liaison**, expressed gratitude for the support from Benning and the customer service team, highlighting the importance of community partnerships.

![MTA Staff Photo](https://davisonindex.mihomepaper.com/wp-content/uploads/images/2024-11-28/1p2-300x215.jpg)
*Photo by Madeline Campbell*

**Loper**, who has been with MTA for about five years, explained her role in developing partnerships for transportation services, stating, “Transportation is so essential.”

**Traci Davis**, Director of the **MTA Rides to Wellness**, also spoke about the collaborative efforts within the MTA team, emphasizing their commitment to community needs.

Benning praised both Loper and Davis for their contributions during the event, stating, “These ladies have done a phenomenal job getting this ready, and I am so proud of the team here.”

MTA CEO Ed Benning prepares to cut the ribbon during a ceremony for the customer service department. Photo by Madeline Campbell GENESEE COUNTY — The Mass Transit Authority (MTA) celebrated the grand opening of its new customer service department with a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house Nov. 21 at its Northrup-Abrams Transportation Center, located

MTA Unveils New Customer Service Department with Exciting Community Initiatives

Intercom is a **leading customer service platform** that leverages **Claude AI** to help over **25,000 customers** automatically resolve millions of support queries with responses that emulate human quality. The AI agent, **Fin**, provides **instant, accurate answers** 24/7, enhancing personalized support while freeing human agents to tackle more complex issues.

### The Power of Claude AI
With **Claude**, Intercom’s Fin:
- **Resolves up to 86%** of customer support volume with personalized responses.
- Achieves a **51% average resolution rate** right out of the box.
- Cuts down response times from **30 minutes to seconds**.
- Offers support in **over 45 languages** to cater to a global audience.
- Customizes tone and response length tailored to each business's needs.

### Overcoming Challenges in Customer Support
Intercom has recognized the limits of traditional support models, which often struggle under modern demands. **Fergal Reid**, VP of AI at Intercom, highlights the high costs of customer support and the challenge of delivering quick, quality responses without sacrificing personal touch.

### Choosing Claude for Superior Performance
Intercom’s rigorous testing of AI models led them to select **Claude** due to:
- **Superior performance**: Claude outperformed other models consistently, achieving a **51% resolution rate** immediately.
- **Reliability and scalability**: Claude maintains high-quality responses while managing millions of queries daily, enabling growth without compromising service.
- **Strategic partnership**: Collaborating with **Anthropic** has allowed Intercom to enhance its AI capabilities effectively.

### Four Pillars of High-Quality AI Support
Intercom’s integration of Claude into Fin focuses on:
- **Knowledge**: Instant answers using a comprehensive knowledge base.
- **Behavior**: Adapting communication style to align with each business's brand.
- **Actions**: Automating complex tasks like processing refunds, potentially increasing resolution rates to **80-90%**.
- **Insights**: Providing analytics for continuous improvement.

### Real-World Impact
Intercom has documented Fin’s effectiveness:
- **Synthesia**, a startup, resolved **6,000 conversations** in six months, saving over **1,300 hours**.
- **Fundrise** automated over **50%** of their support volume in three months, maintaining **95% accuracy**.
- **Lightspeed** achieved resolution rates of up to **65%**, enhancing agent productivity.

### The Future of AI in Customer Support
Intercom aims to redefine the collaboration between AI and human agents, with plans for Fin to handle more complex tasks autonomously. This evolution allows support teams to focus on strategic roles rather than repetitive tasks. **Fergal Reid** emphasizes that they are not just automating customer service but enhancing it to a **truly human level**.

Discover how Intercom's AI agent Fin, powered by Claude, delivers instant customer support in 45+ languages, reduces response times from 30 minutes to seconds, and achieves up to 86% resolution rates while maintaining human-quality interactions for over 25,000 customers.

Unlocking Customer Support Excellence: How Intercom's Claude AI Achieves 86% Resolution Rates

### Overview of FCC's Review
The **Federal Communications Commission (FCC)** recently announced a review of the **customer service** provided by **ISPs** (Internet Service Providers). This review comes in response to concerns that poor customer service is hindering consumers from switching providers effectively.

### ISPs' Response
In defense, ISPs, through their lobbying group, claim that they offer **effective and user-friendly** customer service, arguing that new regulations are unnecessary. They state:
> "Providing high-quality products and services and a positive customer experience is a competitive necessity in today’s robust communications marketplace."

### Consumer Experience Challenges
Despite these claims, many consumers report difficulties when attempting to resolve issues with their providers. The FCC highlighted that:
> "Dealing with customer service should be easy. But all too often consumers of communications services cannot get help without navigating a complex maze of chatbots and other automated tools."

This complexity often leads to frustration and can deter customers from changing services, which negatively impacts market competition.

### Industry Lobbying Groups
The **NCTA (The Internet & Television Association)** insists that their members strive to ensure effective customer support. Similarly, **USTelecom**, which represents major telecom companies like **AT&T** and **Verizon**, argues that the competitive broadband marketplace compels providers to deliver high-quality customer service.

### Regulatory Outlook
The chances of the FCC implementing new regulations appear slim, especially under the incoming administration. The new chairman, Brendan Carr, has expressed dissent regarding further inquiries into ISP customer service, suggesting that ISPs may not face new regulatory challenges moving forward.

![US ISPs offer excellent customer service according to US ISPs](https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/11/US-ISPs-offer-excellent-customer-service-according-to-US-ISPs.jpg?quality=82&strip=all&w=1600)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month announced a review of the customer service offered by ISPs (internet service providers),...

Are ISPs Really Providing Excellent Customer Service? A Closer Look at the Claims

Cloudflare recently faced a significant issue with its **logging-as-a-service** due to a faulty software update, leading to a **loss of customer data**. This incident, which occurred on **November 14**, resulted in approximately **55% of logs being lost** over a span of **3.5 hours**.

### What Went Wrong?
Cloudflare's **Cloudflare Logs service** is designed to collect and send logs generated by its cloud services to customers for analysis. These logs are essential for tasks like **debugging**, identifying **configuration adjustments**, and generating **analytics**. However, a change made to the **Logpush** tool, intended to support additional datasets, contained bugs that miscommunicated with **Logfwdr**, leading to the data loss.

### The Impact of the Outage
The company emphasized the importance of logs for its customers, who often require data from multiple servers. The **Logpush** tool is utilized to bundle logs into manageable sizes and push them to customers efficiently. Unfortunately, due to the software snafu, all log events were inadvertently sent to the system, overwhelming it and causing further outages.

### Swift Response
Cloudflare staff quickly identified the issue and reverted the changes in under **five minutes**. However, the subsequent **Logfwdr bug** led to a flood of log information, exacerbating the situation and resulting in the loss of logfiles. 

### Lessons Learned
Cloudflare has acknowledged its shortcomings in **preventing this incident**. The company compared its oversight to not fastening a **car seatbelt**, where built-in safety measures fail without proper implementation. Moving forward, Cloudflare plans to implement **automated alerts** to catch misconfigurations and enhance testing protocols to prepare for potential **datacenter** or **network outages**.

This incident raises critical questions about data reliability and the importance of thorough testing in software updates, especially in services that handle sensitive customer logs.

Software snafu took five minutes to roll back. The mess it made took hours to clean up

Meet Jeff Reichel: A 40-Year Journey in Customer Service Management

Summary:

A Lifelong Commitment to Customer Service

New Beginnings in Dyersville

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Other Latest News

Unlocking the Future: How AI is Revolutionizing FinTech Customer Experiences

Meet April Graff: The Award-Winning Dietitian Redefining Customer Service at Hy-Vee

Discover How Small Business Saturday Can Boost Your Local NJ Economy!

MTA Unveils New Customer Service Department with Exciting Community Initiatives

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Are ISPs Really Providing Excellent Customer Service? A Closer Look at the Claims

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Other Latest News

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Meet April Graff: The Award-Winning Dietitian Redefining Customer Service at Hy-Vee

Discover How Small Business Saturday Can Boost Your Local NJ Economy!

MTA Unveils New Customer Service Department with Exciting Community Initiatives

Unlocking Customer Support Excellence: How Intercom's Claude AI Achieves 86% Resolution Rates

Are ISPs Really Providing Excellent Customer Service? A Closer Look at the Claims

Cloudflare's Major Logging Service Outage: What Happened and What It Means for Customers