customer disservce, thy name ist Verizon
Sep. 7th, 2007 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioWednesday Dani's phone died. (Mine is fine so far, so we don't immediately suspect that the battery did damage.) We have no particular reason to change providers, so Thursday over lunch he went to a Verizon store downtown to look at phones and ask some questions (namely, is this a use-it-or-lose-it upgrade event for me too if he upgrades?). He came back from that with the information that there would be financial benefits to upgrading together, so last night we went to the Verizon store in Monroeville to do that. That's where the trouble started.
We got there at 8:25 (they close at 9) and had to wait about 10 minutes to be served (there was a line). We spent the time looking at phones; Dani pointed out the ones he'd narrowed his search to, and I looked at some others. Disappointments: everybody is doing colorful wallpaper that you can't turn off, only some phones have readable fonts (for me), and the RAZR that looked good on paper turned out to be nigh unto unusable. The LG 3450 would seem like a natural upgrade from our LG 3200s, but they've made it harder to use in pursuit of style. (The demo model was also broken.) Dani's other front-runner was called the Coupe (don't know who makes it; it came out last week), which seemed an acceptable just-plain-phone other than the wallpaper problem. (The clerk pointed out that with the camera-phones, which this isn't, you can use a photo as your wallpaper -- so just take a picture of a white wall. Ok, but I still consider it a sign of poor design that not one of the phones we looked at offered that, or "blank", as an option. All of the camera-phones had serious usability problems, either fonts or buttons.)
Ok, so if there's a benefit to upgrading together, I can live with the Coupe. What exactly is that benefit? Well, um, err... if we get more than three accessories to go with the phones, we get a discount. Otherwise, they were going to extend the contract two years and charge us service and data-transfer fees on one of the two phones. ("It's a family plan and we're each supposed to get a free upgrade." "The free upgrade means you get the phone, not the fees." Um, right.)
So I drilled into this a little more. If Dani upgrades his phone now and I don't, can I upgrade mine next month (or next year)? And what will it cost? Or is this "now or never"? She said it's not now or never; the commitment binds to the person/phone, not the plan. Commitment? Well yes, this is a renewal of the two-year contract. We have a single contract; how does this work? Dani's upgrade binds his phone number to a two-year plan now, and my later upgrade will bind my phone number to a two-year plan (starting then) later. But, of course, if we change the plan -- which is the only way the two of us could make independent changes later -- there's a cancellation fee. I think -- the clerk was very inarticulate, kind of rude, and probably wrong on at least one thing she told us. At least some of this is different from what Dani understood from the other store. I asked for the details in writing and got a contract from someone I assumed to be the manager.
So there is no such thing as a "free upgrade"; it's just that at any point you can sign yourself up for a two-year plan and get a cheap phone to go with that. I asked what the incentive was for staying with Verizon, since everyone offers that deal -- isn't there something for customer loyalty? She looked at me like I'd grown a third eye.
We got our current phones at Best Buy because we were also comparing service providers. We both thought we would get better service for Verizon upgrades from Verizon, but I think we were wrong. The sales people at Best Buy last time were much more helpful. And polite. If I upgrade, that's where I'm going.
By this time it was too late to go elsewhere and Dani needed a phone, so he upgraded his and I did not upgrade mine. Really, given what's currently out there, if my phone remains healthy I'm happy to just keep it. Besides, no new phone (according to the sales people) has analog roaming, and my phone does. We couldn't get a digital signal in Toronto last time we were there, so that matters.
Oh yeah -- that's worth a note. We asked about analog roaming and she said "that's going away". Going away? Phones don't support it any more. I said we've needed analog roaming in the past in Toronto and did she have any suggestions there, and she said (I can't capture the tone in mere text) "but, but.. that's another country!". Well yes, but it's in another country an afternoon's drive away that we visit from time to time, so I thought maybe there'd be some sort of support for it. In her universe, US = world; since the US is doing away with analog signals, there's nothing to talk about.
While she was processing the order and trying to find the right cables for the data transfer, she somehow started talking about unruly customers and how she'd kicked somebody out last night for repeatedly using the f-word and being rude. So I was a little surprised by what I heard when she took Dani's phones (old and new) in the back room to do the transfer. Apparently she found this process challenging. Apparently she forgot that there was no door and her voice carries. Um, yeah -- real professional.
Verizon is currently sending me small Amazon gift certificates in exchange for customer feedback, so I think I'll see what they have to say about this. I wonder if I'll still be welcome in the focus group next week. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-09 01:28 am (UTC)Cell phones are so much less customizable than I would have thought. (I dreaded owning one, and didn't until about six months ago, but do see the appeal in case of emergency.. still, it is a very expensive acoutrement for someone who spends maybe two hours a week on personal calls) Controlling the font seems essential to me, whereas "video on demand" is a feature I have never even bothered learning how to use.