I’m a Verizon customer. Have been since I got my first cell phone in 1992. They were GTE when I first signed on, I think.
Loyal? Hell no, just practical. They have the network that seems to support me best in my locale and travels. I’d dump ’em in a second if someone — ANYONE — came along with just a modicum of customer service or concern. I’m searching for the proverbial “iota” here…
I won’t give a litany of examples of my thoughts and opinions on Verizon’s poor customer service; after all, this is a blog, not a whine. I’ll just use the most recent…
My daughter’s cell phone flips on the horizontal to access a keyboard. It has, then, two screens; a small one when closed, and a larger one when flipped open, so you can use the keyboard. That bigger screen stopped working. Well, not exactly stopped working, just that my daughter has to smack it her hand two or three times to make it work for short periods. Though most of these devices aren’t user-friendly, I feel certain that “bludgeon phone” is not in the tutorial.
Anyway…
Her phone is maroon, where most of this model are black. The Verizon rep at the store (FM 2920 and Kuykendal in Spring, Tx) told me she could replace the phone, but all they had was black. GREAT!, I thought. Then, the stupid news… “We can replace it with a black phone, but she’ll still have to keep her old maroon battery.”
Where in heaven’s name do they come up with such nonsense??
I said, no, we won’t do that. Either replace the phone as is (maroon), or — my preference — with a black phone, but it must actually be all black. Not some junkyard looking piece-together version.
You guessed it. Instead of simply giving me what I wanted, and making me happy, she spent the better part of 20 minutes searching high and low for a maroon phone she could give me, since I wasn’t OK with the idiotic suggestion she made about a multi-hued phone. she found one, and it’s being overnighted to my house.
Why? Because she didn’t have to do anything else. Cost of battery? $29.95. Cost of FedEx shipment? $19.50. Plus 20 minutes of her time and a ticked off customer.
She did the worst thing we can ever do… Pay money to frustrate a customer or employee.
Don’t do that — we can generally tick ’em off for free.
Thanks for nothing, Verizon.
Are we guilty of that? Do we spend money to irritate employees or customers? Are our processes or procedures designed only for system convenience, not for end user value?
I wonder…
But that’s just me.
