In times of crisis, people tend to take stock of the essentials first: Do we have enough groceries, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper to make it through? Judging from the sparse pickings and long lines at many grocery stores, people take these needs quite seriously.

But not all essentials are shelf-stocked provisions. Some are services, like electricity and clean water. Increasingly, people have come to see another service as essential: network connectivity for their phones, computers, tablets, televisions, and a growing array of other devices.

Verizon, at its core, is a service provider, and the service it provides – connectivity – is a modern bare necessity for many individuals, families, and businesses. Granted, you’d probably expect a telecom executive to say nothing less. But don’t take my word for it – look at the numbers.

As shelter-in-place orders increased across the United States, our customers began making 800 million mobile calls and sending 8 billion texts per day, every day!¹ https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-americans-are-spending-their-time-temporary-new-normal To give you a sense of how abnormally high those figures are, we’re talking about twice the phone traffic we’d normally see on Mother’s Day – our busiest day of the year. The text volume we’re handling each day is about the equivalent of New Year’s Eve – all the time.

In addition, the average duration of a call jumped by about a third, online gaming is up 115 percent and VPN and video conferencing traffic are at levels never seen on home networks. You get the picture – these numbers are simply confirming what all of us already know. People are relying on their home and mobile network connections for more and more these days. To do business. To learn. To keep kids entertained.
As the nation’s leading provider of cellular and broadband services, it is incumbent on us to sustain connectivity for all of the community ecosystems that depend on us for that service.

With all of these communities in mind, leadership in this climate means one thing above all else: running toward the crisis, head-on, to confront its challenges and sustain essential services.

But crises don’t come with a playbook, or at least this one didn’t! Our teams and technical experts have had to adapt and innovate. This means re-engineering our network to support surges and dramatic shifts in traffic patterns. It means keeping service running to households and businesses that need help. It means training our people – fast – to handle something none of us have faced before. And it means being wherever our customers need us – even as we’ve had to shut down stores and safeguard our field personnel from a spreading virus.

Some actions are massive in scale, others more discreet, but all have had to be swift and thorough. For instance, Verizon was proud to provide connectivity to the USNS Comfort, a naval hospital ship deployed to hard-hit New York City, and capacity to hospitals and newly established testing locations.

In all, the Verizon Response Team has deployed emergency services and solutions to more than 270 response sites in 30+ states,²https://www.verizon.com/about/news/325-update-verizon-teams-frontlines-covid-19-first-responders and Verizon has given first responders priority access to our networks. These kinds of emergency-support measures are just some of the most fundamental ways that a large corporation can take the lead toward serving society in a time of need.

Others are less obvious, but no less crucial. True leadership requires addressing the unseen but very real emergencies that individuals, families, and small businesses are facing right now. Sustaining service is only part of the equation. We must also adapt and enhance services to fit the unique challenges of the times. That includes eliminating financial worry for customers during uncertain times, bringing new tools into different community ecosystems, minimizing disruption and relieving strain as much as possible.

For residential and small-business customers, for instance, that includes a commitment to keeping financially impacted customers connected, waiving fees and overage charges, and providing more high-speed data at no charge.³https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-helps-eliminate-worry Our small-business webinar series is delivering practical advice and insights on how small businesses can thrive under the current circumstances, and the Pay It Forward LIVE weekly livestream series – featuring the likes of Alicia Keys and Billie Eilish – provides entertainment for all at home and financial support for businesses in need.

To help acclimate to new at-home realities, we’re partnering with the New York Times to give free NYTimes.com access to all high school students and teachers in the U.S., and Verizon customers will also receive learning tools and premium TV at no addition cost, including Showtime, Epix, Quizlet, Chegg, Bookful and more.

To accomplish this, we rely on top-flight, highly dedicated frontline employees, who are serving others even as they are trying to address all of the personal and family needs that everyone is dealing with.

This means Verizon’s leadership responsibility is multilayered. We have an obligation to respond to public needs with integrity, dexterity, and compassion. We owe our employees no less – and we realize the actions we take will crystalize within the company culture for years to come. More than 70% of corporate-owned retail stores and all our call centers are now closed, so we’ve protected all employees’ income and we’re retraining and redeploying thousands of front line employees to work-from-home customer support functions, with the help of a fast-development program created by Verizon’s Learning and Development team. Essential on-site employees are receiving enhanced pay,⁴https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-offers-enhanced-pay-essential-site-employees and many capabilities and services are moving online, at vzw.com and the MyVerizon app – almost all business transactions can now be handled remotely.

We’ve also deployed a new tool to serve residential and small-business customers who need repairs for wireline, data, or video services: a virtual assistant, video chat app, and self-service portal that enables technicians to assist customers without entering their residences or premises. Technicians have resolved 90% of repair requests when the tools has been used.⁵https://www.verizon.com/about/news/providing-service-through-virtual-contact

Overall, the approach we are taking to crisis leadership at Verizon is woven tightly into the fabric of the company. As providers of essential household, public, and business services, our only option is to confront crisis squarely – and to maintain the networks that keep our communities connected.

This has required a level of agility and preparedness that large corporations are not known for, but such nimbleness has always been part of our company culture. That’s because the essential nature of our business demands it. Our employees know it. Our customers depend on it. And that’s what matters most, living up to our company purpose: