Friendly people working with bad information systems
Written: Feb 05 '01 (Updated Feb 05 '01)
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Pros: Fast answering, friendly people who really try.
Cons: Corporate information systems are primitive.
The Bottom Line: Friendly people who really want to help are saddled with poor support from corporate information and billing systems and lack of integration between separate pieces of the merged company.
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| jsquarejj's Full Review: General Reviews of Verizon Customer Service |
To me, the most amazing thing about mobile phone usage is that the rate of growth is staggering despite the fact that users have such low opinions of call quality and customer service.
I'm a satisfied Verizon Wireless user in the San Francisco Bay Area although call quality and customer service are just a bit better than adequate. I stick with Verizon because the others seem to be a bit worse.
I'd like to explain what I've found out about Verizon customer service so others can do what it takes to get better service.
From my interaction with Verizon, I've found that service problems have three main causes: inexperienced service representatives, inadequate corporate information systems, and poor integration of separate parts of the merged company (Verizon is a merger of GTE, Ameritech and others).
Service Reps
Whenever I call Verizon, I get a friendly service rep who seems to really want to help, and most of the reps seem to have a good grasp of the basics. They deal very easily with billing problems and changes in service plans.
I recently changed service plans at my local Verizon store, and they added calling features that I had not asked for, increasing my basic bill by about $10 per month. I called customer service, and they credited my account immediately without question. They also said they canceled the extra features, but that's a story I'll continue below.
Where the service reps fall down is on any problem beyond the basics. If you have problems with things like voice mail, web access, etc. you'll be lucky to get someone who can really help you. If you want advanced features, you should be the type of person who can figure out how to deal with the problems yourself. Otherwise, wait a few years until Verizon learns how to help the rest of us with tricky problems.
Corporate Information System Snafus
Back to my unwanted features problem. When my next bill arrived, I found that I had been credited for the unwanted features, but I still had the features and had been billed for them for another month.
I called customer service again and was given another credit for the cost of the features. Fortunately, I got a good rep who explained to me that the previous rep had indeed turned off the unwanted features, but that this had occurred after the cutoff date for the billing period. That's why the features appeared again on my bill. The rep promised that they wouldn't appear again, and they didn't.
So, since Verizon's corporate information systems don't seem to work in "real time," you may have to call several times to resolve a problem and get the billing credits you are entitled to. Still, I'm one of those people who is happy to spend 5 or 10 minutes on the phone to save $10 or $20.
Merger Integration Problems
My partner and I, who live in California, bought Verizon cellular service as a graduation present for her son, who lives in New Mexico. We did this at a Verizon store in Albuquerque. Despite the fact that we listed our California address as the billing address, the bills went to her son's address where they sat unopened because he was spending the summer with us in California.
We suspected something was wrong, so we called Verizon in California. They were unable to find any information about the account. We finally came to realize that Verizon California is really GTE and Verizon New Mexico is really Ameritech, and that they hadn't really integrated their corporate information systems.
In fact, Verizon California wasn't even able to give us a phone number to call Verizon New Mexico.
Bottom Line
Despite the fact that it provides a "high tech" service, Verizon is really a corporate dinosaur, slow moving, with ancient information systems and difficulty communicating between its head and tail.
Its basic services seem to work quite well, but trying anything out of the ordinary is bound to lead to problems until the corporate information systems are improved and the disparate parts of the company are better integrated.
Faint praise, but I do feel that Verizon is better than the others.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 30
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Epinions.com ID:
jsquarejj
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 - Top 200 |
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Member: Jim J
Location: Santa Cruz, California
Reviews written: 190
Trusted by: 79 members
About Me:
#7 in Personal Finance, #17 in Travel. My goal? Saving you money.
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