How NOT to Provide Customer Service
2008-08-R12
(Copyrighted 2008 by Don M. Tow)
Recently I have some experience with Verizon when I changed our telephone
(both local and long distance) service from at&t to Verizon.
That experience dealing with Verizon’s service order
process and more generally speaking their customer service process was a
very painful experience.
It was probably the worst customer service
experience I have personally experienced dealing with a major company in the
I want to share that experience with the reader by
summarizing the problems that I encountered with Verizon.
More detailed information about those problems
are described in the letter attached below that I wrote to Verizon’s CEO and
the Presiding Director of their Board of Directors.
Basically, I encountered four serious problems with Verizon:
Originally we were planning to upgrade our service
with Verizon to subscribe to their FiOS’s Triple-Play Service Package
(telephone, Internet access, and TV), and drop our current Internet access
and cable TV services with Comcast.
After this experience, we are reluctant to make
that switch, especially considering that Comcast has been very responsive
and easy to do business with their customer service representatives.
However, we do experience quite frequently
(monthly, and sometimes weekly) service outages with our Internet access
service from Comcast.
These outages usually are of short durations,
of the order of minutes or tens of minutes, but sometimes could be hours.
We have heard that FiOS is very reliable for
Internet access service.
I would welcome very much readers’ comments on
their experiences with Verizon, Comcast, or other related companies.
To Verizon’s credit, a few days after I sent the
letter to Verizon’s CEO and the Presiding Director of their Board of
Directors, someone from their Executive Customer Relations office did call
me.
He asked me whether the billing errors have been
corrected.
He also said that they have been looking for
several months at the customer service part of their business and changes
will be forthcoming.
I also told him that their bills are very
difficult to understand, and he said that they have also been looking at
making their bills more transparent and more easily understandable.
I am taking a wait-and-see attitude to decide
whether Verizon is a company that I want to continue to do business or
expand my business with.
He also tried to call me later, but after we
played telephone tags several times, he didn’t call back again.
Date: July 16, 2008
Subject: Verizon’s Customer
Service
To: Mr. Ivan G. Seidenberg
Chairman
and CEO
Verizon
Communications, Inc.
Dr.
Sandra O. Moose
Presiding
Director
Board
of Directors
Verizon
Communications, Inc.
Mr. Seidenberg and Dr. Moose,
As a customer and also shareholder of Verizon, I would like to report on my
recent experience interacting with Verizon with respect to switching my
local and long distance telephone service from at&t to Verizon.
It was an extremely negative experience.
As a matter of fact, having worked in the telecommunications business
for about 25 years, including in the areas of operations and customer
service, I am sorry to say that my recent series of interactions with
Verizon is probably the worse I have come across.
On 5/29/08, I called Verizon and requested to switch my local/long distance
telephone service from at&t to the Verizon Freedom Essential Plan with
Caller ID, Call Waiting, and Voice Mail services for the promotion price of
$29.99 per month during the first year ($46.99 after the first year).
I also subscribed to the International Choice Rate feature for $1.00 per
month (rate as quoted to me), that would significantly reduce the charge for
any international call.
I would like to summarize briefly the problems that I experienced during the
next few weeks with respect to the service order and customer service
process.
I.
Multiple mistakes in information conveyed by multiple Verizon agents and
Verizon corporate:
1.
The 5/29 agent told me that the switchover will be on Wednesday 6/4, between
8 AM and 12 noon. When that
date/time had passed, I called Verizon and found out that it was scheduled
for Thursday, 6/5.
2.
After the switchover occurred on 6/5, I discovered that there was no Caller
ID, Call Waiting, and Voice Mail!
3.
So I called Verizon again on 6/6.
A second agent told me that the Caller ID, Call Waiting, and Voice
Mail services will be implemented on Wednesday, 6/11.
She also told me that I will be receiving an information package
which would explain these services.
When 6/11 came and went, these three services still had not been
implemented.
4.
I called Verizon again on Thursday, 6/12.
A third agent told me that the earliest date that those three
services could be implemented would be the following Monday, 6/16.
I requested to talk to a supervisor and asked that those services be
implemented earlier, since it was a series of Verizon mistakes that caused a
delay of more than a week (the Caller ID service is especially useful to us
and is something that we have relied on for many years).
The supervisor finally agreed that those services will be implemented
before the end of that day 6/12.
5.
The 5/29 agent also mistakenly told me that to do the switchover, a Verizon
technician will have to come to work on the phone box by the curb outside of
our house. It turned out that
the switchover could be done remotely in the central office.
6.
When I asked the 5/29 agent about the cost of the Inside Wiring Maintenance
Plan, she told me that the Verizon Freedom Essential Plan includes that Plan
for free. That was a big
surprise to me, and I doubted her information.
So I asked her whether she is sure about that statement, she said yes
and said that only that particular plan includes the Inside Wiring
Maintenance for free. Later, I
found out that this is also not true.
7.
On 6/16, I received a letter from Verizon welcoming me as a new Verizon
Freedom Essential customer for the low monthly rate of $49.99.
So on 6/17, I called Verizon and asked why the monthly rate isn’t
$29.99. I was told by a fourth
agent that that is just a standard letter Verizon sends out to all customers
and their standard rate is $49.99 (which was just recently increased from
the standard rate of $46.99), although my promotion rate is $29.99.
She told me that I can just ignore that letter, and assured me that
when I receive my bill, it will be $29.99.
Even if this were the case, Verizon should never send a letter to a customer
stating that the monthly rate is $49.99 when the rate for that customer is
$29.99. This just creates
concern and confusion for the customer, and wastes time for the customer and
Verizon when the customer calls Verizon to inquire.
Furthermore, in case of disputes on the price, the customer would not
have any written documentation that the service he subscribed to is for
$29.99 per month.
8.
On 6/23, I received my first bill from Verizon, and to my surprise the
charge was $46.99 for the monthly charge.
So this is different from what the agent in Item I.7 assured me, and
also different from the promotional rate of $29.99.
9.
I called Verizon again, and a fifth agent checked my account and said that I
was incorrectly billed and adjusted the bill.
Since I didn’t see any charge for the International Choice Rate feature, I
asked this agent about it. He
said that my account has not subscribed to this feature, and that the cost
of the feature is $4.00 per month, not $1.00 per month as what the first
agent told me on 5/29.
II.
Verizon did not commit to dates promised:
1.
As explained in Item I.1, the original switchover date of 6/4 was not kept.
2.
As explained in Item I.3, the implementation date of 6/11 for the Caller ID,
Call Waiting, and Voice Mail services was not kept.
3.
I did not receive the information package until 6/20, which was a full
two-weeks after Verizon had told me (see Item I.3) that they will be sending
me this package and more than three weeks after I ordered the services.
This means that Verizon was charging me for services which Verizon
has not provided me with information on how to use those services.
III.
Lack
of a well-thought-out process:
The
whole process that I had experienced clearly showed that Verizon did not
have a well-thought-out service order and customer service process.
For example:
1.
As
explained in Item I.7, Verizon should not send the general letter stating
that the monthly charge for the Verizon Freedom Essential Plan is $49.99 to
a customer with a promotional monthly charge of $29.99.
2.
Every time I called Verizon, the automated voice response unit would tell me
to have my 3-digit code (the code after the telephone number on the bill)
ready because the system or agent is going to ask for it.
However, I am a new customer and have not received any bill yet; so I
don’t know what my 3-digit code is.
Furthermore, after I was connected to an agent, the agent would also
ask me for the 3-digit code even after I have explained to the agent that I
am a brand new customer. Either
Verizon should give to new customers a separate toll-free number to call
that doesn’t ask for the 3-digit code, or Verizon should tell the customer
his/her 3-digit code at the time the service was ordered.
3.
The information package (see Item II.3) explaining the services should be
sent to the customer as soon as the order has been taken.
That would allow the customer to know how to use the services as soon
as the services are implemented and the customer is being charged for those
services.
IV.
Difficult to do business with:
1.
No matter which Verizon number I called (either the 866-302-6943 as stated
in the original promotional letter, or the 800-427-9977 number in the
Verizon phone book for Verizon Residential Services), it was very difficult
to navigate through the automated voice response system to be connected to
an agent, especially when the system keeps asking for my 3-digit code (see
Item III.2).
2.
On two separate occasions, when I called and inquired why the Caller ID,
Call Waiting, and Voice Mail services have not been implemented and whether
they were included in my service order, the agent transferred my call to
another agent in another department or location, who then told me that their
department doesn’t have that information.
Furthermore, they have no idea where I can find that information.
3.
In talking to the Verizon agents, when I complained about the service
order/customer support service I have been experiencing, at least twice the
agent would just drop my call. I
think they did that on purpose, because they didn’t want to hear any
complaints from customers.
From the above, you can see that Verizon is providing extremely poor service
order/customer support service.
If the bad experience was with just one agent, then one could argue that the
problem might be just with that particular agent.
However, when the problem was with multiple agents and with Verizon
corporate on multiple issues, then the problem is probably due to how
Verizon runs its business, i.e., the lack of a well-thought-out service
order and customer service process.
We were seriously considering of upgrading our communication services to
Verizon’s FIOS for our telephone, Internet access, and TV service, and drop
our current Internet access and cable TV services from Comcast.
However, after our recent experience, it is unlikely that we will do
that switch even if Verizon’s services are cheaper than analogous services
from Comcast. This is especially
so when we take into consideration how responsive and how easy it is to
contact a Comcast customer service representative.
Unfortunately, our negative experience with Verizon seems to be fairly
common. We have heard of horror
stories from several of our friends, including the following quote:
“When I talked to both companies about their
Triple-Play packages, Comcast representative is very easy and efficient to
work with, but Verizon representative is awful and very difficult to work
with.
This big
difference in customer services on telephone conversation drove me to sign
up with Comcast.
…
When I talked to Verizon people on the
phone, it seems that nobody in Verizon is capable or authorized to complete
the transaction with a customer.
Each
representative told me that he/she must switch me to another representative
and when he/she switched me, it was not a person but is a machine that
announced 6 or 7 options for me to choose.
When I went through such machine choice
and got to a person,
this person had to switch me again.
It kept
going this way and I was switched many times and could not get it done.
So, I
gave up on Verizon.”
Summary:
As a stockholder of Verizon, I am appalled at such poor service order and
customer support service that Verizon is providing.
It creates customer dissatisfaction and increases cost.
I wonder how much business Verizon is losing or not getting because
of such poor service. I strongly
recommend that Verizon seriously look into this issue and make appropriate
changes.
Sincerely,
Don M. Tow, Ph.D.
(my complete contact information was included in the original letter)
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