Horrific Customer Service

[Ollorin]

  I have to say Verizons customer service is absolutely horrific.  Everytime I have an issue or question I get transfered on average 3-6 times.  And I usually get trasfered back to the same department at least once.

  My most recent adventure was simply to get my set top box swapped from the old SD box to a newer SD/HD box  to accompany the new HD TV I just got.  Not a difficult task.  Initially my only question was just to confirm that the "Set Top Box" in equipment changes was indeed the HD box.  Simple enough for live chat, or so I thought.  The tech on chat wouldn't even let me ask and insisted I follow a link he posted.  The link hung, didn't load, and crashed the chat connection.  I reconnected and the tech asked me to "please not close the chat window".  After finally getting the link to work, it let me to a page that did the exact same thing as the page I was on.  At this point I finally got to ask the only question I had, a whole six minutes after I tried to initially ask.  So thinking I escaped my most recent encounter with Verizon support was over with only being mildly annoyed, I closed chat and continued with my equipment order change.

  This is where I ran into my second road block.  There was no option to have the box shipped anywhere but my home address.  Since I live alone and in an apartment building there is no one home durring the day to accept packages, nor any porch to leave a package on.  And I'm not about to have them leave it on the side of the street, since it'll be gone in 10 minutes.  So I get on chat again to ask how I go about having the box shipped to my work and if I would be better off just going to the Verizon store.  I was informed that I was better off having it shipped since they can't guarantee the store will have the box in stock.  Then I was advised to just put the order in and try to have the shipping company change the ship to address after the fact.  Nope, not going to do that.  I've had shippers try that before and it only ended in 3 days of headaches trying to get the shipping info changed.  So at this point I call the phone support.  I was told it wasn't a problem and was taken care of by the first person I got on the phone!  I should have known it was too good to be true.

  On to my 3rd issue.   A few minutes after getting off the phone with my "sucessful" Verizon support call, I get an e-mail with a breakdown of my "new" Verizon Fios services, which are $17 more a month than what I'm paying now.  At this point I'm less than happy and call back again.  This time the menu services kick me straight to someone that can help me with my currently pending order.  I explain the issue and am told "I'm sorry but I can't help you with that I'm only tech support.   I'm going to have to transfer you.".  After explaining to the next woman that gets on the phone that I'm not changing my services, she tells me (in a not so polite tone) that I'm mistaken and that the order is just for the box.  I told her that the invoice I recieved says nothign about equipment, nor do any of the dollar amounts match up with what I'm supposed to be charged.  At this point she tells me that once the old reciever is recieved in to thier facility my bill will be re-adjusted back to what it should be.  So I'm just supposed to accept what my monthly bill will be in the future on faith that they will do right by the customer?  At that point I told her that if I have to call back to have my services changed back and for my bill to be readjusted I'm definitely going to be a lot less happy.  At this point the service rep took a really bad attitude with me and kept trying to interupt me.

  I'll admit I was "less than friendly" with the reps on my second call.  And I have been in the past on my second, third, etc, calls/transfers to try and get questions answered/problems resolved with Verizon in the past.  But come on.  I'm the CUSTOMER.  It's your job to keep us the customers happy.  What ever happened to "the customer is always right"?  I work in a service related job, and I know that isn't imperically true, but I always do my best to make sure my customers are taken care of to the best of my ability and I never talk over them or get an attitude with them.  Right now Verizon Fios is definitely the better service, at least for internet, than anything else out there for the phone.  Why can't Verizons support system match that?  There is just no excuse.

Normally, I wouldn't "rant" or complain about service like this but tonight just really sent me over the top.  I have yet to get even decent customer support from Verizon phone, DSL, or Fios. (Yes I've stuck with Verizon since dial-up, God help me)  I even tried to give Verizon wireless a shot when it was time for a new phone but no one could give me an answer as to what my monthly bill would be if I bundled with my current services (mind you I know the exact plans, features, etc), so I opted to stay with my current carrier after being transfered at least 7 times by Verizon Wireless and Fios (yeah they bounced me back and forth). 

[ksternberg]

I am definitely no fan of large, faceless corporations. I especially dislike Verizon.

But I have to admit that on the last few calls I've had to make to Verizon, I spoke with people who knew what they were talking about and were very pleasant. The one tech support call I made got me to someone who clearly did not have a clue about Macintosh computers, even though this was the call path I'd selected.

I redialed and got another tech on the "Mac" line who was night and day better and more Mac conversant. I think it really is the luck of the draw as far as how competent the person you get is. It's not ideal, but it's probably realistic.

Since you admitted to being less than friendly on the phone, maybe it was your tone and attitude that helped get you bounced around so much. If you truly work in a customer service job, you of all people should understand how hard it is to deal with an angry or upset customer. Yes, the customer may always be right most of the time, but no employee is obligated to be the target of an abusive caller.

[Ollorin]

  Well, I started out with a pocket full of skepticism as to how well my questions would be answered and admittedly my attitude when down from there as my questions and issues were not handled on thier end.  I always keep my composure and am as pleasant as can be to at least the first 2 people I talk to, and as with anyone, how I'm treated generally dictates how upset I will eventually be at the end of the call.  As of late with bad experience with Verizon support piled on top of bad experience my fuse has gotten shorter with thier support services as well.  Not that that's an excuse, but I think that is to be expected with the kind of service I have received from Verizon support.  I am, after all, only human.

  The issue is, when it comes to supporting thier customers Verizon completely drops the ball.  As far as I've seen, there isn't a luck of the draw to it.  Everytime I've needed to call to get an answer or issue resolved it turns into a giant mess, with no one "able" to handle my question or issue until I've been transfered several times or had to call back several times.  At best I get someone who is friendly but can't do a darn thing for me.  If there were a ISP out there with the speed of fiber that didn't suddenly drop off when everyone in the neighborhood got home and logged on I would definitely be closing my account.  Not just from this one incident, but from all the times I've had to deal with Verizon support over the years.

  As for being an "abusive customer", I was not.  At the same time I certainly was fairly upset with the service I was receiving.  It's possible to be polite and angry at the same time.  Difficult, but possible and I've only been pushed past polite once, and that was probably my 4th or 5th call back (I won't even go into how many transfers) concerning an issue that had yet to be resolved.  The worst of it was telling the CSR to "stop blowing smoke up my butt and just get the problem fixed".  Granted I could have been more polite but after the all the terrible service I had recieved I still managed to curb myself from using more descriptive words that I really wanted to use.

  And if I've had a customer call that was abusive.  That's right, in 5+ years I've only had one customer call that was that mad.  And they were more mad that they destroyed an expensive piece of equipment and wanted me to fix it for free so they could cover thier tracks.  The reason I don't get irrate customers calling me is because I'm competant and do my job correctly.  When someone calls me with a problem I make sure it gets fixed.  I don't put them on hold for extended periods of time, transfer thier calls thier calls on to 6 other people none of which have anything in thier notes about the issue, or ever get an attitude with them.  And my company doesn't bring in nearly as much as the various Verizons (because alas they are all seperate companies in each others eyes and have no way of co-operating to resolve customers issues).

  The simple fact is Verizon needs to shave a little off the top of those profits and invest it back into thier support system.  Customers shouldn't have to be transfered 6+ times to get relatively simple questions answered or issues addressed.  Nor should they have to call back 3+ times for the same problem.

[ksternberg]

You're totally right about being angry and polite at the same time. That would describe me most of the time when I call a customer service person. At least after two minutes. But I guess I must just be very lucky with the reps I've spoken with.

My FIOS service doesn't get slower when my neighborhood comes home and logs on, nor should yours. I hate to say it, but I suggest that you insist that a tech come out to check the line near and in your home.