Hi Nate, The customer service department is committed to "something". This "something" can be described using a gerund phrase. A gerund phrase has a gerund which is a verb that ends with -ing but functions as a noun instead. Your gerund phrase "providing friendly service and prompt replies" is "something" that the department is committed to. Other examples: "I like jogging". "Jogging" is a gerund and it describes an activity, which is actually a noun. "I am used to jogging at night." In this sentence, I am used to "something" which is described using a gerund phrase (jogging at night). I hope this helps.

You have already got a verb: committed. Whatever you say after committed to will take the 'ing' form.

I'd like to give some addition. For Chinese people, we sometimes try to over-generalize the verb pattern ' verb1 (something) to verb2 ( in infinitive)' to where it does not fit. But, as you know, some verbs1 always precede a gerund (rather than an infinitive), or vice versa, or both make sense but have different meanings. The reason for the diversity of the three types of verb1 is mainly lying in their intrinsic meanings (sememes or semantemes), and sometimes the conventional and established practice in which the native people use a word plays a prominent role in shaping a certain usage pattern for a verb1. Actually, apart from Chinese-speaking English learners, people speak other languages incline to over-generalize too. Further more, even the native English do the similar as well. In the beginning, the use is often rejected by more or less people. As time goes by, the new use is either accepted by more and more people, and and at last up to the majority of the society, or coexsist and compete with the the old uses, or is elliminated at all. For 'commit', the basic meaning is ' to send someone to somewhere'. Although 'to send someone to somewhere to do something' is logical and natural, native English speakers do not usually follow 'commit' with an infinitive. All this said, the fact is there actually is the use of ' to commit somebody + infinitive', although may not have been accepted as proper yet.