Will you be our Valentine?
There is still time to get your perfect gift this Valentine's Day. Plus, how we surprised customers at local chocolate and flower shops with free treats.
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Happy Valentine’s Day, V Team.
On today’s jam-packed live episode of Up To Speed, hosts Raquel Wilson and Jennifer Marin brought us the latest and greatest news from around the business.
Love is in the air
Still scrambling to find a gift for your loved one this Valentine’s Day? Verizon has you covered with a buy-one-get-one offer. For a limited time, if you buy one of our 5G phones, you’ll get a second one on us when you activate a new smartphone line on select 5G Unlimited plans. Plus, you’ll get $400 when you switch two lines at verizon.com. We’ve got deals on watches, headphones, accessories and more, but the offer ends today, so head into a store near you to get in on the action.
You can even share the love with your Friends and Family discount code. Friends and family can get up to $25 a month off new Unlimited postpaid mobile accounts and $10 per month off Fios Gigabit Connection internet plans when they switch to Verizon online. Plus, be sure to select our special edition Valentine’s Day cards to pair with your Friends and Family discount.
On the subject of love, it’s National Random Acts of Kindness week. Jen showed us how we’re surprising customers at local chocolate and flower shops with treats in nine cities across the country this week — all while spreading the news about the savings and value of being a Verizon customer.
All things Arizona
We continued to dominate the market in Phoenix with an activation at the Bird’s Nest, as part of the PGA’s Waste Management Phoenix Open. Attendees were able to use our complimentary phone chargers and win prizes when they played our Plug Play Win games.
Big surprises
And in case you missed it, be sure to check out our heartfelt surprise to Super Bowl superfan Don Crisman, featured on yesterday’s episode of Up To Speed. Don has attended every Super Bowl in history, and Verizon and Visa teamed up to make sure he kept his streak alive this year.
And there’s more winners — our Unstoppa-bowl V Teamers, who were awarded Super Bowl tickets for their hard work, celebrated in spectacular fashion, from kickoff to confetti. A big congratulations to all the winners!
We recently asked for submissions for a chance to win a $75 NFL gift card. We announced the winners on the Inside Verizon Linkedin page, so make sure to head over to see if you won.
Last week, we continued to “Fill the Fridge” with goodies at our Phoenix-area retail stores at Avondale Gateway, Peoria Crossings and Arcadia. Kelley Kurtzman, Senior Vice President of Consumer Field Sales, joined Up To Speed’s own Andy Choi at Peoria Crossings to hype up our V Team in an Instagram Live broadcast.
There were even a few surprise celebrity sightings around the Verizon store. Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was among the NFL players who took photos with fans at our Phoenix-area stores throughout the week.
The Power of Partnership and Connectivity
Verizon Enterprise and Business Market customers got the opportunity to attend a panel hosted by Massimo Peselli, Chief Revenue Officer of Global Enterprise and Public Sector for Verizon Business. Massimo spoke with Team Penske’s Bud Denker and Will Power about partnership and the power of connectivity.
Plus, we teamed up with United Way at Arizona State University for a Digital Inclusion STEM event for under-resourced students, and we supported Visible’s collaboration with local nonprofit Goodr for a grocery store pop-up event serving 1,000 local families.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science
This past Saturday was International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Verizon partnered with Rosie Riveters to create an event for young women in 11th and 12th grades to network, engage in workshops and discuss STEM career pathways.
V Teamers, Jessica Chait and Mario Acosta-Velez spearheaded the event with the goal to familiarize young women with STEM careers, provide them with the opportunity to interact directly with role models and mentors and to prepare them for their own futures in STEM.
Earthquake relief
Last week, a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Türkiye, killing more than 36,000 people. Verizon is waving international long-distance call charges to Türkiye for our consumer and business customers, as well as our residential landline customers, through February 19th.
Want to give back? Click here to utilize our Matching Incentive Program, donate to the V to V fund and more. In the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquakes, the company has pledged $100,000 to organizations providing humanitarian relief in the region
Verizon Business news
Verizon has announced the winners of our inaugural 2022 Verizon Partner Network Recognition program, celebrating partners that have gone above and beyond to collaborate, serve customers and deliver results.
Ranging from small- and medium-sized businesses to enterprise and the public sector, the Verizon Partner Network has a five-star rating from CRN, delivering models that are simple and easy to use.
The winners include our Connected Solutions Group for Operational Excellence, our ConectUS Wireless for Customer Business Impact and more.
Channel chief
Senior Vice President for Nationwide Small Business, and Channel Chief for Verizon Business, Wendy Taccetta, was voted among CRN’s 2022 Top 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs. Wendy credits this accomplishment to the forward-thinking momentum of Verizon, its partners and the V Team at large. A big congratulations to Wendy.
To close out the episode, Raquel sat down with Vandana Venkatesh, Chief Legal Officer, and Nasrin Rezai, Chief Information Security Officer, to talk about the widely-discussed new artificial intelligence software ChatGPT.
ChatGPT discussion
Nasrin explained how ChatGPT is a technology that is an early working prototype of a conversational system that provides humanlike responses to questions. You may have seen the tool in the news — or heard about it from one of your kids hoping to use it to write their school essays.
While artificial intelligence (AI) is integral to Verizon’s strategy, ChatGPT is not synonymous with AI, as AI is a much broader science and discipline involving using computers to do things that traditionally require human intelligence.
Vandana echoed Nasrin’s remarks, highlighting two primary risks: how we use these platforms and the information security risks.
As an organization, our top priority is our four stakeholders: communities, customers, investors/shareholders and society, and we have to be thoughtful when introducing a new and emerging technology such as a ChatGPT.
As it currently stands, ChatGPT is not accessible from our corporate systems, as that can put us at risk of losing control of customer information, source code and more. Nevertheless, Vandana emphasized that as a company, we want to safely embrace emerging technology.
To close out the episode, Raquel and Jen played our latest ad, once again reminding the V Team how our network will continue to win long after the last fan goes home from the stadium.
