The audit was performed as part of Waste Management’s “Service Machine” program, which consists of processes and standards that help the company’s local operations deliver a high level of service to its customers. As part of the gold standard designation, it means Waste Management of San Diego, operating out of El Cajon, Coast Waste Management, operating out of Carlsbad, and Waste Management of North County, operating out of Oceanside, meet or beat metrics including:

• Successfully answering and servicing an average of 6,500-7,000 customer calls per week. As part of the Service Machine metrics, the “call abandon rate” must be three percent or less for calls into the customer service center (meaning three percent or less of customers hang up once calling in).
• An average answer speed of 20 seconds or less for calls into the customer service center.
• One or less missed pickups by the company’s waste and recycling trucks per 1,000 customers. In San Diego County, Waste Management serves more than 140,000 residential customers, approximately 25,000 commercial customers and 2,000 industrial customers at least once per week in areas including Camp Pendleton, Carlsbad, Del Mar, El Cajon, Oceanside, San Diego, Santee, Solana Beach and several unincorporated communities throughout the county.
• Successfully setting up an average of 800 new commercial or residential accounts per week, with error-free set up on at least 98 percent of the new accounts. As part of the Service Machine metrics, the “set up error rate” cannot be any greater than two percent for new customers.

Other metrics govern the recovery of missed pickups, repairs and swaps of damaged containers and the tracking of concerns such as safety hazards near customers’ homes or businesses or containers that are blocked and unable to be serviced as expected.

“We are so proud of the hard work and coordinated efforts of our teams in San Diego County to make sure our customers receive the great service they expect. We are very excited about their achievement of the gold Service Machine standard,” said Carl Scherbaum, District Manager of Waste Management of San Diego.

“Our drivers, mechanics, customer service representatives, dispatchers, operations personnel and the many others who make sure our organization runs smoothly each day have worked tirelessly to achieve and maintain these standards to fulfill the needs and expectations of our customers,” added Ken Ryan, District Manager of Coast Waste Management and Waste Management of North County.

Waste Management, Inc. is the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America. For more information, log onto www.wm.com.

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