Why is VZW customer service so useless?

[simonintx]

This is a copy of a complaint I sent to VZ today I'm sure nothing will come of it but I had to vent.

Bottom line: VZW customer service is horrible. I received a flyer the other day for an early upgrade to a storm 2 or a droid. I called CS to what the conditions were, if any. The CS rep was very helpful and knew what I was talking about. I said I would go into the store the next day to buy one. The flyer stated, go to your nearest VZ store because it is not available online. I go to the store the next day and the rep inside the store says she doesn't see that I'm eligible for an upgrade and I need to go online. She says, even with the flyer, the best she could do for me is charge $500 for the storm 2. I'm frustrated so I called CS and the rep tells me I'm not eligible to buy the phone at a discount. She calls the flyer an error that is sent to everyone regardless of their account status.

I end up calling a different VZ store that is about 20 minutes away and the rep there tells me she's not sure, she needs to see the flyer first. I decide to risk more time and drive 20 minutes on the tollway to see if I can buy the storm 2 with a discount or not. I get there and they help me right away and sell the storm 2 to me as the flyer stated. I only wanted what was promised to me on Verzion's own flyer. The amount of time I spent doing this and the variety of answers I received depending on who I talked to is ridiculous.

Verizon, Get your **** together and stop wasting my time! By the way, VZ customer service is infamously bad and often the **** of many jokes in Blackberry forums. I doubt anything will come of this complaint but I had to vent anyway.

[amavit]

When it comes to blackberry, yes I have seen them have some terrible service, but overall Verizon's has great customer service and normally they are willing to go the extra mile to help you leave/hang up with a smile. I've only had one problem with them and that was when they reported my phone stolen (I never lost my phone or reported it stolen) and then charged me the reconnection fee. But it got fixed and the fee was waved.

[brealmp3]

did you ask to see a manager before you left the first store?

[moneymatt]

Originally Posted by simonintx

This is a copy of a complaint I sent to VZ today I'm sure nothing will come of it but I had to vent.

Bottom line: VZW customer service is horrible. I received a flyer the other day for an early upgrade to a storm 2 or a droid. I called CS to what the conditions were, if any. The CS rep was very helpful and knew what I was talking about. I said I would go into the store the next day to buy one. The flyer stated, go to your nearest VZ store because it is not available online. I go to the store the next day and the rep inside the store says she doesn't see that I'm eligible for an upgrade and I need to go online. She says, even with the flyer, the best she could do for me is charge $500 for the storm 2. I'm frustrated so I called CS and the rep tells me I'm not eligible to buy the phone at a discount. She calls the flyer an error that is sent to everyone regardless of their account status.

I end up calling a different VZ store that is about 20 minutes away and the rep there tells me she's not sure, she needs to see the flyer first. I decide to risk more time and drive 20 minutes on the tollway to see if I can buy the storm 2 with a discount or not. I get there and they help me right away and sell the storm 2 to me as the flyer stated. I only wanted what was promised to me on Verzion's own flyer. The amount of time I spent doing this and the variety of answers I received depending on who I talked to is ridiculous.

Verizon, Get your **** together and stop wasting my time! By the way, VZ customer service is infamously bad and often the **** of many jokes in Blackberry forums. I doubt anything will come of this complaint but I had to vent anyway.

1) Always ask to see a manager - floor employees are probably paid commission on the transactions and can be shady.

2) If that doesn't work, pick up the direct land-line phone to customer service and have them talk directly to the manager. They have the ultimate authority to force a transaction.

Best,
$Matt

[seVer916]

So u didn't get the same info from 3 diff people and the entire company has bad service? Riiiight. People make mistakes, have wrong/diff info, etc. I guarantee ur not perfect either.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[kinggeoff]

You should try Telus CS... they make VZW look like an allstar team of mensa members

[Bob61]

As FYI, if you think VZW customer service sucks, according to this months Consumer Reports, it's the best out of the big 4 (VZW, Sprint, TMobile and AT&T).

Ratings as follows (1=Worse, 5=Better)

Customer Support Phone

VZW - 4
TMobile - 4
Sprint - 2
AT&T - 2

Website

VZW - 4
TMobile - 4
Sprint - 3
AT&T - 2

Staff Knowledge

VZW - 5
TMobile - 4
Sprint - 2
AT&T - 2

Issue Resolved

VZW - 5
TMobile - 4
Sprint - 1
AT&T - 2

Summary

VZW - 18 / Avg 4.5 (4, 4, 5, 5)
TMobile - 15 / Avg 3.75 (4, 3, 4, 4)
Sprint - 8 / Avg 2 (2, 3, 2, 1)
AT&T - 8 / Avg 2 (2, 2, 2, 2)

Just imagine how angry and frustrated you'd feel if you had Sprint or AT&T.

To add some more input, in reviewing various smartphones offered today, the Storm (9530) was scored at 69. The iPhone that people seem to cream their shorts over was rated as 71 for 8GB and 74 for 32GB.

Top rated smart phone on all 4 networks were:

Iphone 32GB - 74 (AT&T)
HTC Touch Pro2 - 71 (VZW)
MyTouch - 70 (TMobile)
HTC Hero - 69 (Sprint)

Interestinly these were about the same rating as Storm 9530, so much for the grass being greener elsewhere

[simonintx]

Originally Posted by brealmp3

did you ask to see a manager before you left the first store?

No I didn't ask for a manager but should have done that in hindsight. I guess I was thrown off because another worker in the store was nodding his head in agreement while she was telling me I couldn't upgrade.

[gpc]

I've seen this and it is frustrating. I have never had a bad phone rep experience, but have had some interesting floor rep experiences that make you wonder where the breakdown in communication is taking place between corporate and in-store.

First, I had a similar issue with the flyer in the mail for stom2 and droid upgrade, but before receiving the flyer I called a phone rep to ask about the deal since I heard about it on crackberry. They said I wasn't eligible. I got the flyer two days later in the mail. I go into the local store, left my flyer in the car, and then asked about the deal and they looked it up and said I wasn't eligible. I said I have the flyer, went and got it, and then they upgraded me to storm2.

No memo from corporate I suppose...

Floor rep example...My friend had a non clicking storm1 screen. We were trying to convince a floor rep that a 'click' screen on storm1 was the selling point of the phone and that the in-store floor model is at least what should be expected. She refused to click the floor model screen as a comparison and said the screen still worked even though it didn't click. What can you do? Customer server over the phone-on the very same day-apologized for the in-store rep and sent my friend another phone.

[twester65]

I've done the tech support and customer service thing. It's a really hard job. Often there are things that are completely beyond the control of the rep (in fact most things are). But the rep has to sit through some pretty abusive situations. I quit my last customer service job without notice because things were so screwed up with the company that every single call was a nightmare.

I have to say I've had great experiences with Verizon's customer service, both phone and store. The reps are very professional and seem to be well-trained. Things must be going right at Verizon for the reps to be so happy.

Some things do go wrong, of course. I think they must have really screwed up that upgrade deal. The whole thing didn't seem very well thought out beyond the slick marketing flier. But Verizon doesn't have the reputation it does for no reason.

[SilvioBenussi]

Originally Posted by simonintx

This is a copy of a complaint I sent to VZ today I'm sure nothing will come of it but I had to vent.

Bottom line: VZW customer service is horrible. I received a flyer the other day for an early upgrade to a storm 2 or a droid. I called CS to what the conditions were, if any. The CS rep was very helpful and knew what I was talking about. I said I would go into the store the next day to buy one. The flyer stated, go to your nearest VZ store because it is not available online. I go to the store the next day and the rep inside the store says she doesn't see that I'm eligible for an upgrade and I need to go online. She says, even with the flyer, the best she could do for me is charge $500 for the storm 2. I'm frustrated so I called CS and the rep tells me I'm not eligible to buy the phone at a discount. She calls the flyer an error that is sent to everyone regardless of their account status.

I end up calling a different VZ store that is about 20 minutes away and the rep there tells me she's not sure, she needs to see the flyer first. I decide to risk more time and drive 20 minutes on the tollway to see if I can buy the storm 2 with a discount or not. I get there and they help me right away and sell the storm 2 to me as the flyer stated. I only wanted what was promised to me on Verzion's own flyer. The amount of time I spent doing this and the variety of answers I received depending on who I talked to is ridiculous.

Verizon, Get your **** together and stop wasting my time! By the way, VZ customer service is infamously bad and often the **** of many jokes in Blackberry forums. I doubt anything will come of this complaint but I had to vent anyway.

It sounds like you have poor deductive reasoning and lack the efficacy in successfully dealing with the adversity of *real life* failures which sometimes can be tricky if you don't know what course of action to take...

1.) Do you know the difference between a corporate store and a franchise?
-There is a difference between the two and as luck would have it....Franchises have the option NOT to honor ANY Corporately mandated promotions....

2.) On your promo-mailer it specifically states certain information unique to your account....I can assure you many Storm owners did not get this deal.

It is also possible they made a mistake, which is easy to do when dealing with millions of customers. Did you buy your Storm on Launch Day?

I have dealt with many helpful (and native English speaking) CSR's but you need to realise that not all are playing with a full deck.

Remember this:
Perseverance, pays off...

The secret of life:
These things are a trial and exemplify your ability to either handle the harder the things in life, or not.

[khanusma]

Originally Posted by seVer916

So u didn't get the same info from 3 diff people and the entire company has bad service? Riiiight. People make mistakes, have wrong/diff info, etc. I guarantee ur not perfect either.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I generally have the same issue when I talk to multiple people. They all have different information and different expectations of what service I am supposed to receive. It is very frustrating.

But, it does not happen everytime.

VzW CS make a lot of mistakes and have a lot of different information. Their policies are too complex and there is nothing the CS and customers can do about it except ***** in frustration.

[khanusma]

Originally Posted by SilvioBenussi

It sounds like you have poor deductive reasoning and lack the efficacy in successfully dealing with the adversity of *real life* failures which sometimes can be tricky if you don't know what course of action to take...

1.) Do you know the difference between a corporate store and a franchise?
-There is a difference between the two and as luck would have it....Franchises have the option NOT to honor ANY Corporately mandated promotions....

2.) On your promo-mailer it specifically states certain information unique to your account....I can assure you many Storm owners did not get this deal.

It is also possible they made a mistake, which is easy to do when dealing with millions of customers. Did you buy your Storm on Launch Day?

I have dealt with many helpful (and native English speaking) CSR's but you need to realise that not all are playing with a full deck.

Remember this:
Perseverance, pays off...

The secret of life:
These things are a trial and exemplify your ability to either handle the harder the things in life, or not.

I think you meant highly likely. Obviously you have never had a real problem with which you needed good smart Verizon reps to help you. Or you would know how incompetent they and their processes are.

[twester65]

Originally Posted by SilvioBenussi

It sounds like you have poor deductive reasoning...

Why don't you just call him/her "stupid"?

[dman59]

I experienced the same issue via phone so I just wrote to the CEO which they have a link that you can write your complaint and someone will contact you back within 72 hours from the corp. office.