Still Waaay Better Than The Others UPDAT 7 Feb 07
Written: Jul 12 '05 (Updated Feb 07 '07)
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Pros: Helpful Customer Support, Will Try To Do Whatever To Fix Issues
Cons: When they screw up they don't fool around.
The Bottom Line: Verizon is an example for other providers to follow.
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| tex-x's Full Review: General Reviews of Verizon Customer Service |
After a year-long nightmare with cingular See My cingular Experience Here, (http://www.epinions.com/content_162356694660) and almost a year with Verizon, I must say I have been pleasantly surprised by Verizon.
The very first bill cycle with them almost caused me to dump cell phones all together tho. We came in under an employee/student discount plan offered by a local school and hospital (a 15% discount on personal accounts and no activation fee to start up). The plan and phones are just about what everybody else offers, so to me it really boils down to service and that’s what is going to keep me with them.
Understand; I GLADLY paid a $300.00 early termination fee to cingular to wipe them off the bottom of my shoe, so you can get the idea of what good service (not perfect mind you, but good) means to me when dealing with a company that offers pretty much the same thing as 10 other companies out there.
When the first Verizon bill came in (conveniently after the 15 day no fault trial) the contracted discount and activation fee waiver were not there. I called Verizon and explained the situation. As usual the script readers had no documentation or clue and would not fix the problem (call center people seem to be the ones that can't get hired even at McDonalds). I went back to the Verizon store (side note: avoid the mall kiosks at all costs) got the manager out front, told him that there was no distinction between Verizon and cingular, gave him the two phones told him to turn them off and that I would be paying the bill/termination fee in unrolled pennies (which would have been 57,000) at his office 5 min before closing that Saturday evening. He asked me to wait 5 min while he checked on what happened (he was the original salesman that set up our plan in the first place) and came back with the standard apology AND get this; full credit for the bill in question AND $50.00 refunded straight to my checking account. Actually left me kind of speechless.
Also, we have intentionally gone back to every spot were we consistently lost cingular service and Verizon works in all but one (deep valley). Dropped calls are rare, very rare no more billing errors since the first and call quality itself seems greatly improved (we don't seem to be saying "what" as much on the phone).
We've been satisfied enough that the local tele-monopoly (you know, the ones that charge you to let telemarketers call you) was told to come get their crap off our property. They seemed real surprised that after a tree limb took their line off my house that I told them not to bother hooking it back up.
Oh yeah, we even added my elderly mother to the plan and she got her first cell phone. She lives in a very rural area and has no problems connecting, she still travels a lot visiting grand-children and the like and claims she has never not been able to make a call. If you want something fun to do over a weekend teach a 70 year old to use a cell phone. Teaching voice mail was an experience in itself.
UPDATE 14 Aug 05:
We Just added 3 more phones to the account. I have 2 children that live in another state, and was able to add them to my local account with phone numbers local to their address and added another phone for myself. The sale and setup went so smooth I was wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. It is sad though to actually get excited about good service from a particular company since ideally they should all be doing this by default. Big thumbs up to Verizon sales and service people.
UPDATE 6 Oct 05:
Since I'm not the one going over the bill anymore I didn't notice this, but Verizon did. It seems that when I added my mother to the account back in April Verizon made that number the primary, which killed the discounts we should have been getting. I found this out when Verizon called me last week stating that they had screwed up and would be crediting the amount of the screw up from April - September to the October bill. Again Verizon has set a standard that none of the others seem to be able to conform to.
UPDATE 2 Sept 06:
They don’t screw up much but when they do….oh man. Since a couple of up grades we have five phones, one Goldstar…er I mean LG, one Motorola V325, and three Motorola E815’s. Two of the 815’s are less than two weeks old and the third is about a year old. This week one of the 815’s stopped registering on the network. Half an hour of describing symptoms and entering the same codes over and over Verizon decided that the problem was on their end, but for some reason the phone had to be flashed. Next day the Verizon store did this but could still not get the phone to register on the network. Since the 815 is apparently being phased out they did not have any in stock and would have to order one. No big deal thus far, they gave us an extra 100 min for the down time (they did this without us asking). Next day my 815 started the same symptoms, another 45 min on the phone, entering the same codes over and over only to come to the same conclusion “The problem is on our end, but you need to get the phone flashed”. Another trip to the Verizon store another failure to get the phone working, except this time I found out they had several v710’s in stock (the only real difference between the phones is the 815 has Bluetooth the 710 does not). I agreed to the 710 swap and they activated two for me. On the way home one of the 710’s would constantly drop calls and so either full strength or no signal. Another 30 min call came to the conclusion that the phone did not work (enter the DUH! Here). I agreed that since the new 815 would arrive the next day to wait and activate that one. Next day I get home from work and guess what NO PHONE, and yet another call to Verizon (at 5:30 pm on Friday) determined that the replacement phone would arrive Tuesday (the day after Labor Day weekend). As I was on call that weekend (and any call in was triple time) this series of errors was starting to cost me some real money. Verizon said that I could either wait or go try another phone from the store. This sent me into full R. Lee Ermy mode, I let Verizon know exactly what this fiasco was costing me and these trips to the Verizon store at 40 miles a pop going for $2.80 a gallon plus time wasted getting bad advice from their end and several admissions from various techs that the original problem was in their end I told them I wanted at a minimum one months service credited to my account. Verizons response to this was “Sir we cannot reimburse you”. To that response I told him to send me to the next level, surprisingly he did without disconnecting me. The next guy asked what the problem was I almost lost it at the prospect of having to tell the whole story yet again. He said let me tell you what I know and proceeded to give a very sanitized version of the events, conveniently omitting the part where the Verizon technicians sent me on two wild goose chases. I told him what I wanted to compensate me for expenses incurred for the mistakes on Verizon’s part. He gave me the same song the previous guy had, I responded with “then lets waive the disconnect fee and we call it even”. Again on hold he came back and made a counter offer of an additional 500 min added to my account, plus another never expire 1000 reserve min. Since we go over a few here and there at $0.35 a min this was potentially a long term $350 savings with an additional $175 on the short term. Also since this was the first mistake on Verizons part that wasn’t fixed with one phone call I decided to accept. So another trip to the Verizon store landed me a temp phone that actually works and the new 815 is supposed to be here Monday. Although he did say to put the temp phone and mail it back in the same package, I forgot to ask if they are sending a prepaid return with that as I will not be going to any extra lengths to get this phone back to them.
UPDATE 20 Sept 06:
The replacement 815 arrived, but of course it was a defective refurb that would not recharge. So yet another call brought more apologies and yet another phone in the mail. This phone arrives in 5 working days and seems to be in working order.
UPDATE 05 Oct 06:
The above compensation for Verizon's incompetence was a lie. The additional time never appeared and no one at Verizon has any record of the deal ever happening. I guess I am going to stay with them as they seem to be no better solution available. I accepted the higher price they charge as they seemed to be above the rest. Now I will just wait until my "contract" expires and try another "service".
UPDATE 21 Dec 06:
All I can say is all of the above happened again. This time though Verizon kept blaming Motorola. I'm on phone number 6 in this ongoing screw up. All the symptoms keep coming back, I keep having to explain the same thing over and over AND OVER again, the morons keep saying anything they think will get me off the phone but not fixing the problem. Now I'm through. I'm going to do the same thing that I did with cingular and pay the early term fees and if there is no company out there that can provide even a small amount of reliable or competent customer service I will at least go with the cheapest option (oh man how I can't wait for retirement and the ability to do away with a phone completely). Until then I am going to make every effort to become a VERY unprofitable customer. Anytime ANYTHING happens on the phone (dropped call, audio artifact, just feel like saying hi to customer support) I'm going to generate a work order (or whatever they use). I am also going to try calling phones in the house (like me to the wifes or daughters) and letting the call stay connected while we are sleeping, since these "In" calls don't count against my min. I recently read about a cingular customer that was involuntarily dropped because she used too many free min calling family.
UPDATE 7 Feb 07:
Ok after much research on the issue, I have to apologize to Verizon. Seems the problems I had with my E815's and V710's are definitely Motorola caused. Although I still have a problem with being lied to (explained above), I have had time to calm down and dig a little deeper. All in all the CSR's did their best and I have to commend them for that.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 210.00/mo
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Epinions.com ID:
tex-x
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Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 0 members
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