Please help with my complaint

[SaltySeer]

I am trying to post a complaint and was informed to post this to a public forum.  Am I posting in the right area?  Don't know, but I'm out of ideas.  The process is certainly unclear.  Please do whatever is necessary to set up a support case for my profile (did I get that right?)

To Whom It May Concern:

This is to complain about unacceptable customer service this past weekend.  The sequence of events is as follows:

1. Friday afternoon (April 25), a Verizon crew was at my neighbor ({edited for privacy}) to fix a FIOS connection from an earlier outage.  While they were present that afternoon, I lost all FIOS connectivity to my house next door.  This included telephone, Internet, and digital TV.  I received no notification.

2. Friday afternoon (April 25), I called Verizon to arrange for a technician to fix my connection.  The customer service representative, Kyle, had me on hold for approximately 30 minutes while he checked with the dispatcher.  He then told me that the earliest available service visit was 0800-1000 Sunday morning.  When I asked if he could arrange for a visit on Saturday in case of a vacancy, he replied that he was unable without first cancelling my Sunday appointment due to his automated system.  I opted to keep my Sunday appointment.

3. Saturday morning (April 26), I called Verizon to investigate the possibility of getting an earlier technician visit.  The customer service representative, Roshonda, had me on hold for approximately 30 minutes while she checked with the dispatcher.  She then told me that nothing was available before my scheduled time on Sunday.  I informed her that it was unacceptable to be kept on hold for so long simply for a negative response and asked to speak with her supervisor.  After being on hold for another several minutes, her supervisor came on the line and before I could ascertain his name, I was disconnected.  I waited a few minutes but was not called back.  Therefore, I recalled Verizon, asked for a supervisor, and was finally connected to Bernice about an hour after my original call.  I expressed my displeasure and asked for confirmation that my bill would be adjusted to ensure that I would be credited for the time that my service was down.  She insured me that she would issue the credit on Monday morning.  She also stated that a technician would contact me 30 minutes prior to arrival on Sunday.

4. Sunday morning (April 27), I received no notification and no technician came between 0800 and 1000.  I called Verizon.  The customer service representative, Stephanie, said that I had an all-day ticket and my technician would not come until that evening.  After I repeatedly asked for specific times, including a definitive “AM” or “PM”, she said I could expect the technician between 6:00 PM and 7:00PM, or 1800-1900.  I informed her that I had already rearranged my schedule based on the earlier Sunday morning appointment, asked to speak with a supervisor, and politely but firmly stated that I was prepared to wait.  Eventually, Stephanie informed me that a technician was near my neighborhood and would arrive in 30 minutes.

5. The technician, RJ, arrived shortly thereafter.  After investigating and speaking to my neighbor and me, he confirmed that my house’s connection had been severed by the crew that had worked Friday (see paragraph 1).  He installed a temporary line to restore connectivity and said that he would submit an order to have the permanent connection completed in 7 to 10 days.

The inadequacies displayed by multiple Verizon employees were numerous.  To summarize:

1. The crew severed the connection on Friday afternoon.

2. The crew failed to notify me that they had severed the connection.

3. Kyle subjected me to at least 30 minutes of hold time and subsequently could not provide a service time until more than 36 hours later.  He also repeatedly blamed the dispatcher for the call delay, and then refused to assist in getting me a possible earlier time based on the limitations of his automated system.

4. Roshonda subjected me to at least 30 minutes of hold time and subsequently could not provide an expedited service time.  She also repeatedly blamed the dispatcher for the call delay.

5. Roshonda and/or the supervisor disconnected me after yet more time on hold.

6. Roshonda and/or her supervisor did not bother to call me back. 

7. Stephanie subjected me to yet more time on hold and also blamed the dispatcher for the call delay. 

8. No one from Verizon notified me about the severed connection at any point throughout the ongoing communication. 

Ultimately, it took nearly three hours of telephone pleading to get my service restored after 44+ hours of outage for an issue that was of Verizon’s making.  I commend Stephanie and RJ for taking concrete actions to restore my service.  The other persons wasted my valuable time.  It is worth noting that all the customer service representatives were seemingly frustrated with the slow response time of the dispatcher and the limitations of the automated scheduling system, and for some reason insisted on sharing that information with me, perhaps mistakenly assuming this excuse was justification.  As a paying customer, I am not interested in Verizon’s internal processes.  I am interested in timely communication and action.

I expect that Verizon will acknowledge this complaint and take corrective actions to remedy the situation.  At a minimum, I expect positive communication and prior coordination for the quick and safe restoration of my permanent connection.  Therefore, I am sending this complaint through mail, online posting, and through the Better Business Bureau and will repeat as necessary until a positive reply is received.

Sincerely,

                                                                        {edited for privacy}

[LawrenceC]

Hi SaltySeer,

Your issue has been escalated to a Verizon agent. Before the agent can begin assisting you, they will need to collect further information from you. Please go to your profile page for the forum and look at the top of the middle column where you will find an area titled "My Support Cases". You can reach your profile page by clicking on your name beside your post, or at the top left of this page underneath the title of the board.

Under "My Support Cases" you will find a link to the private board where you and the agent may exchange information. This should be checked on a frequent basis, as the agent may be waiting for information from you before they can proceed with any actions. To ensure you know when they have responded to you, at the top of your support case there is a drop down menu for support case options. Open that and choose "subscribe". Please keep all correspondence regarding your issue in the private support portal.

[Verizon_Support]

Hello SaltySeer,

That's great to hear the bill is correct. Please let us know in a new public post if you ever need help with anything else.

Thank you,

-Jeramy