March 25, 2020

Dear Partners & Friends,

To reduce the spread of Coronavirus, Oregon Governor Kate Brown has issued a Stay Home, Save Lives Executive Order (No. 20-12) instructing Oregonians to “stay at home” while “closing specified retail businesses, requiring social distancing measures for other public and private facilities and imposing other requirements for outdoor areas.”

Vervent is complying with this order by continuing its business operations with the implementation and enforcement of appropriate prevention and social distancing policies. Our alternative work schedules are performing well in California and have now been implemented in our Portland operations center. We continue to monitor the situation in the Baja operations center and remain dedicated to protecting the safety of our staff while doing our duty as part of the country’s critical business infrastructure.

As this situation is unique and fluid, we continue to closely monitor news in all regions and will continue to communicate as developments unfold.

Stay Safe,

David

March 20, 2020

Dear Partners & Friends,

As many of you have likely seen, last night California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a Shelter in Place Executive Order to slow the spread of coronavirus. The order instructs “all individuals in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence except as needed to maintain continuity of operation of the federal critical infrastructure sectors.”

Vervent is classified under the ‘Financial Services Sector’ category of the critical infrastructure sectors, as we provide vital services that if incapacitated would have a debilitating effect on economic security. We support this position and are staying open to continue to serve your business as we have done over the past three-plus decades.

We also feel it is our social responsibility to protect the safety of our staff and community, so we have implemented multiple work practices to increase social distance. These options allow us to continue providing support solutions to all our clients with minimized interruptions while also mitigating further risk and limiting personal interaction for our staff.

While this is certainly a concerning and confusing time for all of us, please know that Vervent is committed to continuing to support our clients. Many of you are reaching out with questions and we are here to answer them. We will also continue to provide regular updates on Vervent.com.

Stay Safe,

David Johnson
CEO
Vervent.com

March 17, 2020

Dear Partners & Friends,

As the Coronavirus continues to impact communities and businesses around the world, please be assured that Vervent is taking the necessary steps to protect potential impact on our clients’ operations and keep our staff safe. We are prepared for and ready to implement disaster relief procedures as mandated by government but are also committed to keep business running to support you and your customers for as long as it is safe.

Vervent has a robust Pandemic Plan in place as well as a general business continuity and disaster recovery plans that will be implemented as needed. We are closely monitoring the Coronavirus news and are actively deploying the following actions to ensure your business is secure and our staff is safe:

• Placed a ban on all travel and implemented a “no visitors’ policy where we are pausing client visits, vendor/auditor appointments, interviews and all office visits to anyone who is not actively employed by Vervent.
• Introduced mandatory social distancing in our offices and increased the use of web conferencing for internal meetings.
• Added mandatory temperature scans upon entrance to all our facilities to ensure that no one with a temperature of 100 or greater enters.
• Enforced a strict policy where no one is allowed to come into the office when ill or exhibiting any symptoms of illness.
• Sent home staff members with known compromised immune systems to ensure this higher-risk group remains safe.
• Provided official CDC guidelines and training videos on hand washing and disease prevention to ensure the Vervent team is educated and adhering to preventative measures that are effective.
• Provided employees with hand sanitizer and have a supply of essential items on-hand as referenced in our Pandemic plan such as gloves, masks, disinfectant, hand sanitizer and bottled water.
• Directed employees with remote access to work from home if they or someone in their family is sick or has been exposed to coronavirus.
• Also note that as a standard operating procedure Vervent continues to have a doctor and nurse onsite to support the health needs of our staff at our primary operations center.

Additional steps are identified within our business continuity plan should events trigger a potential business impact/outage for several hours to several days. Examples include: shifting from voice communication to non-voice channels; directing customers to self-serve options through voice IVR and web portal. We also have multiple Operations Centers and a geo-redundant environment for many of our functions which enables us to shift between locations to add additional coverage should the impact of Coronavirus worsen in a specific region.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out me or the team to discuss this further. We will continue to provide regular updates as the situation develops.

All the Best,

David Johnson
CEO
Vervent.com