Great Products - Miserable websites

[oldfashioned]

barbshop - That's weird.  I was always able to pay directly through the website without going through what you described.  I wonder why that is.  Hmmm....I don't know if this helps but there are other ways of paying your bill on line.  I do it through my bank's online payment manager and that's never a problem for me.  I don't know if it's necessarily quicker but it just keeps all of my bill payments organized in one place instead of going to separate websites to pay each particular vendor. 

I do agree that sometimes programs are not designed with the user in mind and yes, that can be annoying.  I enjoy Verizon very much myself and I can never trade it in for cable.  It's a great product for sure.  But yes, some of the websites can be confusing.  For example, when I was looking under the "upgrade and renewal center", it was telling me first that I could upgrade my existing service for the same exact contract price I have now.  Really?  That couldn't be and I knew that didn't sound right and sure enough when I added this upgrade to my cart, the price changed to $114 per month, which makes sense.  I really doubt this was due to sinister intentions on anyone's part.  That has to be a programming error that wasn't tested and/or revised to communicate more clearly to the customer.  And I really wasn't sure if I should just upgrade to a more expensive package.

So then I got into an on line chat with a Verizon rep who was very helpful with breaking everything down and who did a fantastic job walking me through all of the websites that she could access so I could see exactly what I was ordering.  She explained to me all of my choices and Justin had mentioned to me that he has always renewed his contract.  And that's when I learned about renewing my own contract to include upgrades to keep my rates the same and in my particular case, my estimated monthly bill will be lower than what I pay and lower than what I had paid before.

Did the website that I went to before explain any of this?  No...and that's when I really needed to talk to someone instead. 

I would hazard a guess that this, along with other messages that are communicated poorly (for example, "You are using an unsupport brower which Verizon does not support"), is what often causes a lot of miscommunication and disgruntled customers.  Another problem that I sometimes encounter is when I click on a particular link I will get an error message saying that the server could not understand the query sent by my browser.  It gets confusing.

[Justin46]

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@Lodgingman wrote:

My wife and I would like to upgrade our phones to smartphones.  We picked out our product and tried to place an online order but met with constant frustration.  My wife would post her order and then when she tried to place mine, it looped back to the screen where you select how many phones you want to upgrade.  Earlier, when I tried to look up accessories, I got looped back to the same place.  My wife tried to talk about the problem with the chat person but that was no help.

Apparently, Verizon doesn't want upgraded phone sales and renew contracts.

Hmmm. Before posting this, I ran the spell check.  It didn't like the word "smartphones".  Really?  On a Verizon forum?

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Well maybe if you posted to the Verizon Wireless website you might have better results? This site is not for wireless products, not sure how you got here if you were ordering cell phones.

__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV, 25/25 Internet, and Digital Voice user
QIP7232, QIP7100-P2, IMG 1.9
Keller, TX 76248

[oldfashioned]

Yep, Verizon is divided into different entities.  Verizon Communications is for the landline services provided by the bundle package (TV, phone, and Internet) and Verizon Wireless is for cell phones, smart phones, I-Phones, androids....did I get all of that right?  lol

[ElizabethS]

Hello lodgingman

These forums are dedicated to Residential products and services offered by Verizon.
For discussions on Verizon Wireless issues, please post your topic on the Verizon Wireless Community at http://community.verizonwireless.com/

[oldfashioned]

barbshop - I just checked out my options on line for paying my bill through Verizon's website.  Toward the right side of my screen after I log in, under "my account", I can open "billing and payment" and select "pay bill" without logging in numerous times.  That's what comes up after I log into my email account.  Or you can click on "view and pay bill" before logging in and that should take you to the same thing. 

Perhaps it's your browser?  I have verision 11 of Firefox and verision 8 of Internet Explorer as a backup.

[JYB1]

Hi,

Never thought I'd be blogging but I see that others also experience challenges with the website.  I do most of my transactions online with just about everything so I'd consider myself comfortable with websites.  Verizon finally has FiOS available in my area so I was excited to add/change my services.  The online deals were great so I decided to go for it.  Four days later after 2 phone calls, a chat online, and site feedback, I'm unable to complete this simple task.  I follow the link which leads to checking availability for my account/area, which then leads to a message instructing me to try later or call a toll free number.  When I try to request assistance via phone, I'm told I can only get the online deal by completing my transaction online (makes sense except the website won't let me).  I then get offered a "similar" deal which costs more.  Not sure if I should take this as an honest offer to help or a bait-and-switch.  I thought my home computers were the problem so I tried other locations to do this.  Still, no luck.  Xfinity deals are starting to sound tempting.

[oldfashioned]

JYB, I think it's an issue with Verizon's server and possibly a programming error.  I encountered something very similar to what you described so I got into an on line chat with a CSR who walked me through the process and explained everything.  I was able to upgrade my service with some discounts and a pre-paid debit card as rewards so I can wind up with a monthly bill much lower than what I have paid up until now.

See my thread "No complaints from me this time!"  If you speak to someone on line who can walk you through the process, it will be a lot simpler and you will be a lot happier in the end.

[armond_in_nj1]

Like others here, I have long-time experience with computers and programming.  For these reasons alone I am often surprised at how well the Verizon setup actually does work, considering the complexity of their offerings and the varied nature of their user base.

I am a recent FiOS "convert" and cannot speak from a perspective of long-term familiarity with the Verizon system.  Initially there were many frustrating (OK, profanity-laced) moments while I was setting up my "stuff," chasing billing credits, dealing with install issues, confusing or incorrect orders, authorizations, account name changes, cabling, equipment issues or malfunctions, etc., etc.  In fact it was for reasons like these that I studiously avoided switching to Verizon from my earlier Comcast-ATT-Vonage  subscriptions.  However the technology looked just too good to pass up, and so we began the journey about a month and a half ago.  It has indeed been a long journey, but we are getting close.

Eventually I realized that I was going to need at least 2 user names, and after much time spent wandering aimlessly among the many sites and pages in the system, I was able to rationalize a consistent system of user names, passwords, bookmarks, etc.  The present state of things is not at all perfect, but it improves daily.  None of this was simple, and I can easily see that users with somewhat less experience would have a difficult if not downright impossible time laying these things out and getting all the services lined up.

I think we all remember our first programming experiences and crashes with even the simplest Fortran or Basic or C+ adventures.  No programs run the first time at bat, and when it comes to the complex programming need to support these pages, it doesn't surprise me to learn that issues still exist.

Life doesn't seem to get much simpler as we go along, but it probably gets more interesting.