Entries tagged with customer service

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customer service

it's kind of like the sorceror's apprentice

A few days ago I wanted to order some books from Amazon. While I was getting a delivery anyway, I decided to throw in a small kitchen item that I hadn't been able to find locally and that Amazon sells directly. I wanted two of said item.

The shopping cart would not allow me to order two of them, though I saw no "almost out of stock" notice on the product page. So I split it into two orders, since I was ordering enough to be able to do that and keep the free shipping, and I was able to put one of the kitchen items in each order. Mission accomplished, though it felt a bit silly.

Then yesterday the email came. For my convenience (and at no extra charge), each of these orders was split into two, one for books and one for the kitchen item. (Presumably they ship from separate warehouses.) I will apparently be receiving four packages from them, two on Tuesday and two on Wednesday. This is more than "a little" silly. :-) It could have been two instead of four, but the interface stumped me. I'm glad I didn't also throw in, say, a clothing item, a DVD, and some electronic gadget into the order; mail carriers have enough hassles this time of year without my help.

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better than I expected from Netflix

Netflix's business people may have their heads in anatomically-challenging places, but their customer support continues to be excellent. We recently ordered the first disc of a three-disc set (The 10th Kingdom). The sleeve proclaimed a running time of 4:25 and the DVD had a label on it. At around the three-hour mark play stopped with a directive to switch to side B.

This does not fit neatly into any of the categories of problem supported by their web site, so I called. I explained the problem to a friendly, sympathetic rep and said that since this is the first of a multi-disc set I have no way of knowing if I've seen everything that's supposed to be there -- yeah, it ended in the middle of the story, but you expect that. So I don't know if they have a problem with their discs or with the time labeling.

"Amanda" said she would send a replacement for that DVD (just in case the problem is a label on a two-sided disc, though that would be a manufacturer error) and also the next disc in the series so I can tell whether there seems to be anything missing in the story. I have the one-DVD-at-a-time plan, so I expected to have to do this in stages.

I've only had a few problems over the course of my Netflix membership, but they have all been handled well. I'm glad to see that's still true after their semi-restructuring.

Tangentially, how can I get GMail to stop treating my Netflix mail as spam? I would have thought that adding the relevant address to my contacts list (which I would otherwise never do) would suffice, but no. Nor did manually reclassifying a couple dozen messages as "not spam" make any difference; where's that "filter bubble" that delivers personalized results when you need it?

Followup: The second disc picks up right where the first left off. The error is not in the discs but in the labelled duration. I'm not sure how to get Netflix to fix that to avoid confusing future viewers.

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customer-service misfire

This blog post ends with an email exchange between the author and Amazon customer support that made me laugh and sigh at the same time. (You can skip right to it without loss of context.) I think they need to tune the AI or involve humans a little more. (Granted that it's also challenging to effectively use irony, sarcasm, and humor when contacting anybody's customer-service department.)

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that was premature

This morning I found my 2008 Honda Fit unable to start. After checking for obvious problems I called AAA. It turned out to be a dead, not just drained, battery; a jump would get it started but it wasn't going to recharge. (The symptoms suggested battery and not starter, but while waiting for AAA I called around to find a place I could have it towed to and repaired today if needed. The nearby Honda dealership was unable to help me with that, but Mark's Auto Repair in Greenfield was happy to oblige.)

Now my car only has 11,000 miles on it, so a dead battery came as something of a surprise to me. I think I replaced the battery in my Mazda (15 years, 75,000 miles) once. Maybe I got a dud, I figured -- but it's out of warranty, so what can you do? I paid Honda to replace it. (Aside: it is a non-standard size, so the AAA guy didn't have one on his truck. I didn't know "normal" cars had unconventional batteries.)

But then I did some Google research, and it turns out that lots of people have had this problem with the 2007 and 2008 Fits. One of them also reported it happening at 11,000 miles. Most of them encountered it while still under warranty, but I wasn't so lucky. (Hey, I cherish my 4.2-mile commute, ok?) But this is clearly a known problem, so I called the service manager at Honda and left a honey-laden message saying that I've been a very happy Honda customer except for this little blip, and I got bitten by a known problem, and is there anything he could do to lessen the sting of that repair bill? Now I wait...

To add insult to injury, today's mail (which arrived after all this happened) contained a 15%-off-service coupon from Honda. :-(

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Cirque du Soleil followup

Sunday I wrote about the current Cirque show and our bad seats. I also sent them polite email expressing my disappointment and suggesting that they downgrade seats with obstructed views. (I figured the show was a sunk cost; I was trying to modify their future behavior.) I received an email reply asking me to call them, which I did today.

The person I spoke with said that the posts were indicated on the seating chart but that they're hard to see. On re-examination I can infer them from some "cut-outs" in the seating area, but I don't see anything that looks like "obstruction here" signals. He also referred to a 3D view, which I couldn't find a path to today. Perhaps it is only available during the seat-selection phase of a purchase; I don't know. He said they were unlikely to reclassify seats but he would look into clarifying the chart.

Nonetheless, he said, he wanted us to be able to see the show and offered free tickets to another show. They're only here for a few more days and the remaining dates don't work, so I declined that. At that point I thought he might offer a discount on their next show, or (on a really good day) a partial refund. What he actually did was to refund the base ticket price (he apologetically explained that he couldn't do anything about the service fee). He said that they want their customers to have a good experience. This is more than I expected and has repaired the negative feelings I had for them (though I'll still be wary about the seating chart in the future).

An aside: when I called their 800 number I was greeted with "blah blah blah... for service in English, press 2". This mono-lingual American is not used to being on the other side of that branch. :-)

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pleasant surprise from Netflix

After returning a DVD, on Friday I was a little surprised to see that Netflix was sending me the second item on my queue even though the first was marked as being available. But shrug; Netflix never promised a strict queue and that's fine. So long as they send the discs in multi-disc sets in order I have nothing to complain about (and this failure is unlikely given how I structure my queue).

Saturday I got email from them saying "you may have noticed that we did that" -- it was because while the disc is available, it wasn't available at my nearest distribution center. So while sending me #2 they were also going to send me #1 from farther away and I should expect it in a few days. This means I will have more DVDs out at a time than is supported by my subscription. It's a very small cost to them to provide this, but many companies wouldn't so it makes a good impression that they did.

In a similar vein, when I downgraded my subscription after getting the Roku streaming device (don't need as many DVDs at a time when there's plenty to watch via streaming), I didn't expect them to replace the DVD that arrived at their distribution point a day before the downgrade was to take effect. They sent it anyway, so I had an extra DVD for some days past when I had paid for that privilege.

Tangent: Roku sent email Thursday saying I could now watch Social Network through them (for a rental fee from, IIRC, Amazon). I observe that the DVD will be available through Netflix on Tuesday. Is there really a market of people who (1) can't wait five more days but (2) didn't see it in the theatre, or (3) have Roku devices but (4) don't use Netflix so they can't get it that way? I'm puzzled by the business model.

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good experience: Shadyside Honda

I have a mechanic I like but scheduling routine stuff like inspections with him is kind of tricky, so last week I called the Honda dealership in Shadyside and made an appointment for this morning (confirming that I would wait for the car and they could do it quickly enough that that would work, oh and that they have free Internet access).

I was ten minutes late getting there this morning; traffic was worse than I had expected going in that direction, plus finding the service entrance was challenging and involved a trip around the block in said traffic. Nonetheless, Greg took me right away and was still done before the time he'd predicted. He also took care of two outstanding recalls he'd noticed I had not responded to, and washed the car squeaky-clean. (Aside: why is "squeaky clean" a positive thing? I'm glad the squeak went away after a mile or so. (Between shoe and pedals, in case you're wondering -- nothing I should have been concerned about.)) Greg was exceedingly polite in all of my interactions with him, from the initial phone call onward. I will be asking for him by name in the future.

In addition, they had a range of drinks in their waiting area, not just coffee, and also pastries. There was a TV going, but it was possible to retreat to another room and not be bothered by it.

I felt well-treated by the folks at the dealership where I bought my Honda (Monroeville), and am glad to have another very positive data point.

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[Pittsburgh] kudos to my council rep

Back in June we had a big storm, and a large stretch of sidewalk along my route to my synagogue became covered in a thick layer of dirt. After a couple weeks passed without the now-packed-down dirt being cleared, I left my first polite note. (No one was ever visibly home when I was walking past.) Time passed, and summer rains turned that packed dirt into occasional mud deep enough that you really couldn't walk through, especially if wearing nice shoes, and even if it weren't that deep, it would still be slippery. I left another note -- referencing the first one, but still polite.

Time passed with no action. It was dry for a while. Then fall came and with it more rain. A few weeks ago when I tried to walk around the mud, by walking on the strip of grass by the sidewalk, I found that that was too swampy too, and I had to walk in the street. The combination of night and rain makes it hard for me to see stuff like this; I found out the grass was unsafe by slipping and nearly falling. If I had trouble I can only imagine what the elderly are going through. So I wrote to my city councilman, Doug Shields, through the council web site.

Friday night the sidewalk was clear. Gloriously clear! It rained this weekend and I didn't have to care. I have now sent Mr. Shields a nice thank-you note. (I'll probably never find out whether city council caused the owner to fix it or just sent workers over. As a taxpayer I care, but not enough in this case to stir the pot.)

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Cirque du Fail

We saw Cirque du Soleil a few years ago and enjoyed the show, so we were planning to go again when we saw that they'd be in Pittsburgh next month. However, we've been overcome by a truly obnoxious ticketing process.

We were chugging along with the not-very-well-designed web site -- chose our show, accepted the offered tickets (which we could only kind-of sort-of locate on the seating chart), filled out all the info including the credit-card security code, were irritated at the $10/ticket service fee (for using the web site) but went ahead anyway, decided the $7/ticket insurance against "lost in the mail" was sleazy and we'd invoke Visa if necessary, and thought we were done -- but no, it then routed us to a page where we had to sign up for some security service "for our protection". That was one annoyance too many, so we fell back to ordering via phone.

The first attempt to do so ended after half an hour on hold with no sign of progress. A later attempt reached a human, who informed us that there'd be a $10/ticket fee (for using the phone), which prompted us to ask where we could just go buy tickets in person, and that turned out to be "nowhere in town". And, of course, they couldn't guarantee delivery without another $7/ticket. And only at this point did we realize that the venue is a stadium, not a smaller place like the last show, and I was pretty dubious about actually being able to see from the seats that were available. I really expected better from a base price of nearly $100/ticket.

So the heck with that. Maybe we'll buy a $20 DVD instead.

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random bits

Dear Pittsburgh CLO: I gave you my phone number so you could contact me if there were problems with my theatre tickets. You lost points by calling to ask for a charitable donation, and you lost lots of points when your agent argued with my labelling of the call as a solicitation. His claim: you're not selling anything but asking for a donation, so that's not a solicitation. I recommend you buy him a dictionary. Unfortunately, you'll be doing it with your own money, not mine.

I'm used to size variation in women's clothing. (Why oh why can't women's jeans use waist and inseam like men's?) And I'm used to minor variations in shoes in US sizes (I seem to wear a size 7.75, which doesn't exist). I had not realized that there is significant variation in sizes on the (tighter) European scale. The size-38 Naot sandals I just tried are nearly half an inch shorter than the size-38 Birkies that fit (and that I bought). They're both the same style, your basic two-strap slip-in sandal.

Dani's company watched searching for evil recently. It's an overview of Internet security issues -- probably nothing new, but he spoke well of it so I want to bookmark it for when I've got a spare hour.

IANA considerations for TLAs was making the rounds at my company this week.

Via goldsquare comes this bizarre story: a man lost parental rights to his younger child, appealed, and was then killed in a car accident. Now state child-welfare agents want to support the appeal, so the child can share in his estate. The court says this is uncharted territory.

Specialized seasonal question: can anyone tell me, in the next 8 hours, if I use high-holy-day melodies in Hallel for Rosh Chodesh tomorrow morning? It's the last day of Av, not the first day of Elul (so we don't blow shofar yet).

( funny image and video behind the cut )

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Verizon, round N

Dealing with Verizon has gotten less excruciating since I acquired the direct-dial number of someone in tier-3 tech support who seems to have a clue. We are definitely into the second-order problems now.

Muhammad (who I spoke with last week) did not approve of our modem, so he sent us a new combined modem/router (including wireless). It came today; if any paper it shipped with had included the modem's user name and password, I might not have needed to call for help in setting it up. The internet side of this is fine.

So far we have been unable to get the wireless to work with either Mac in the house (the only wireless devices we have). With WEP turned on, the password is simply not accepted. If we turn WEP off and go to MAC authentication instead, neither machine can see the network. If we turn off all security everything works fine, but we're not interested in doing that.

Right now our solution is to leave the wireless turned off unless we actively need it, but that's a short-term solution. To his credit, Muhammad said he would research this and call me back tomorrow. (I think he will; he also called earlier today to confirm the modem had arrived.) Muhammad isn't a Mac user (he called back to say "what OS?" and when I said "10.4" he asked if that was sufficient ID), so we'll see what happens. So far what Google is telling me is that other people with iBooks have had this problem.

Wireless is new to me (I've used other people's networks but never administered one). I thought it pretty much just worked out of the box these days, but I guess not.

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DSL followup

( finally connected )

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ordered new glasses

A while ago I asked about opticians. Thanks for the pointers. On the basis of the feedback I got from a coworker, this morning I took my prescription over to Optometric Associates of Pittsburgh, who seem to have the right amounts of customer care and attention to detail (and proximity doesn't hurt). So far, thumbs-up. (Of course, the real evaluation won't be possible until the glasses come in.)

The optician I met with, Jan, asked me what I was looking for in frames; I said my priorities were lens size/shape, fit, and "not garish", and all other properties were solidly second-tier. I said I wanted lenses no smaller than my current ones because these are my do-everything glasses (not into separate reading/computer glasses), and asked her to turn those comments into recommendations.

I was pleased that for every frame she pulled, she started by having me put it on so she could check the fit of the bridge and withdraw any that weren't right. (I have a small bridge, apparently.) Of the four frames she handed me three were good candidates, and my explanation of why the one wasn't led to some of the other options.

She had been doing this much just by looking. At this point she measured the lenses on my current glasses and the top candidate; the new ones are exactly one millimeter bigger in each of length and width. Score; the current ones turned out to be 1mm smaller than specified. :-) (We had been talking about the size-weight tradeoff; too small and I wouldn't be able to see, but I was mindful of being too heavy, too.) The shape of the new ones is pretty similar to that of my current ones.

I told her that bifocal placement was very important to me (had problems with that in the past), and that one of my current lenses is good and the other is a smidge high. She said the difference was obvious, though the folks who made the glasses had claimed it didn't exist; it turned out to be a difference of half a millimeter. She measured the distance between my pupils with a machine rather than a ruler, explaining that it was more precise. (Having now read a bit about it, I'm glad to see that it "reads" my eyes rather than depending heavily on my maintaining focus in one area. One of my eyes wanders and is hard to keep on target sometimes.)

She was very friendly and accommodating when I explained past problems I've had and would like to avoid. She explained the quality-control process ("you won't even see the glasses until I've confirmed all these measurements are exact"). Even if that's just part of the patter, I left feeling confident. Now I just have to wait a few weeks.

( stats )

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short takes

On Sunday I helped a friend paint her house. (Well, priming, actually -- painting commenced today.) Painting isn't hard; why is my body complaining about it? It's as if some key joints woke up and said "hey, we're in our 40s -- the warranty has to have expired by now!". Sheesh.

I've had a loaner cat for a few days, while a friend was out of town dealing with family stuff. The visitor is a very easy-going cat; two of my cats need to learn to chill. :-) But, he's gone home now and all is well. (When I wasn't home I kept him in one room lest there be trouble otherwise, and this had the effect of turning him into something of a puppy-dog when I let him out. Very friendly cat...)

Someone named Darter, who does a lot of photography in the SCA, posted his Pennsic pictures recently. Hey, I recognize that singer. (Seriously, I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see a reasonable picture of myself, because I can't do decent posed pics no matter how important it is, and I'm rarely the subject of candids.)

Speaking of Pennsic, I had to call a number of trailer-repair places before I found someone who would talk to me about the damaged axle on the Pennsic house. About a week and a half ago I talked to someone who promised to go take a look soon. I sure hope he got up there this weekend. (How did I find repair places? After several false starts trying the referral path, I started working my way through the listings here.)

Thursday I got a phone call from the "retention manager" at the Trib, who assured me that they are trying to solve my delivery problem. In the last few days I haven't missed a paper, which is good; I do wonder how long it will last. We've done this before. Well, she asked me to call her Tuesday with an update, so I can ask her about the long-term fix then. This is, by the way, the first time someone has called who has left a return number, so that's progress.

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[Pittsburgh] anyone else having problems with newspaper delivery?

I still enjoy reading a paper newspaper -- not for the national news, which I can get more efficiently online, but for local news and features, and for the tactile experience of reading it with a cat snuggled on my lap.

Pittsburgh has two newspapers, the right-wing one and the left-wing one. Both of them are oftentimes offensive to me with their editorial slant, but I find that the right-wing one is more moderate in its wing-ness and is generally less annoying to me. And, face it, I'm not going to find a paper in wide circulation whose editors I'll usually agee with. So, all things considered, I like getting the Trib, and I've been getting it ever since the now-defunct Press went on strike in 1993.

I understand that delivery can be challenging. The pay's probably crap, which makes it hard to keep good people, and someone has to get the paper to my house every morning anyway. I take this into account when tipping my carrier. For the last couple of years I have had excellent service.

Then, at the end of June, the Trib outsourced its delivery service -- to, it turns out, the Post-Gazette. My delivery service has degenerated badly; I would estimate that in the nearly two months since then, I have missed almost as many papers as I've received. Every time the routine is nearly the same: I call to complain, they (optionally) promise me a replacement paper, said paper (if promised) does not arrive, they promise that a circulation manager will call, and it doesn't happen in a timely manner. I have received two calls -- after stretches where papers were missed nearly every day, there'd be a good stretch for several days and then someone would call to ask if things were ok now. Both times I've said "so far"; the second time I said "but it didn't continue last time". I have yet to receive a call for the current run. The folks who answer the phones are not authorized to put me in direct touch with someone higher up, of course (or so the script says).

I'm fed up. The whole point of getting a daily paper is to have it show up without me having to do anything. I am not going to go to the trouble of seeking out a paper to buy every day, or on the days when the paper doesn't show up. If I can't shake a manager-type person loose, I will probably just cancel.

Is anyone else in Pittsburgh having delivery problems -- with either paper, since it's apparently the same people now? It might seem in the PG's interests to slightly degrade the outsourced service compared to their own, but I assume they're smart enough not to try that (it would get them a short-term win and a long-term loss). I'm curious how widespread the problem is, and if anyone else has been able to solve it.

My house isn't hard to find, and it has a nice wide porch and an uncluttered lawn -- a big target area, in other words.

(If I do cancel: can someone point me to a customizable web-based comics aggregator? Ideally I want to go to one page that displays today's strips from a list I specify. Following forward/back links for my subscription list would be acceptable. Having to find each strip in a menu/list is not. I don't want to syndicate to my LJ subscription list; I want them all in one place in a batch.)

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random bits

Why, oh why, is tulip season so short? It feels like they just showed up not long ago, and now they're fading. Oh well... on to something else, I guess! (I think the lilac bush is next to bloom, but I'm not sure.)

This weekend Dani and I joined some friends for a last-minute gaming get-together. We played La Cita (my third time, I think), which split interestingly: the winner had 35 points (would have been 40 if he hadn't starved his people in the last round), another player and I had 32 and 33, and the other two were in the high teens. It didn't look like that in play. (I thought I was doing worse and those last two better.) Then we played Rum and Pirates and all clumped within a few points of each other (something like 62-70). I like both of these games and will happily play more.

A few weeks ago I ordered a used DVD set via Amazon Marketplace. (I decided to see what all the Heroes fuss is about.) I chose a seller who had only a handful of ratings, all positive, figuring that someone like that is motivated to give good service. (Also, I noticed that the DVD would ship from PA.) A few weeks passed with no DVDs, so I sent email a couple days ago. This morning the seller wrote back with profuse apologies; he (she?) had accidentally sent my order to someone else who'd ordered on the same day, but now had the set back in hand -- "so I'll drive it over this afternoon". It turns out the seller is in the greater-Pittsburgh area. As promised, the DVDs were waiting for me when I got home from work, so everything worked out just fine. (I never order anything from third-party sellers that I actually need in a hurry.)

Speaking of TV, the BBC might bring back Blake's 7 (link from caryabend). Woo hoo! I trust that this will eventually find its way to DVD and, thence, my TV. Since it's been more than a quarter-century, I do wonder what they'll do for casting. Of course, they could well do a "25 years later..." story, even though the final season left things on a cliffhanger.

(Anonymous) quote of the day, after interviewing a job candidate: "He has a lot of learning to do, and I don't want to pay the tuition".

This sign in a shop made me laugh.

Reusable printer paper looks like an interesting idea; I wonder if it can be developed economically. I'm surprised by the claims about what it costs to (1) manufacture and (2) recycle a piece of paper.

Quote of the day #2 brings some much-needed context to the flap over Obama's ex-minister. Excerpt (compiled by dglenn): "No one likes to hear someone, especially a preacher, criticize our good country. But Donna Potis [...] and so many others who decry presidential candidate Barack Obama for having attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church while he preached prophetically have very selective memories." The whole thing is worth a read; it's not long.

Somewhat relatedly, osewalrus pointed me to this post pointing out that all the candidates and the voters have a bigger religious-leader problem than this. Excerpt: "[I]f I wake up and find that I'm in an America where certain pastors and certain churches are openly denounced from the White House's presidential podium, I will suddenly get even more nervous about freedom of religion in America than I already am." Yes.

I found this speculative, alternate timeline of the last ten years by rjlippincott interesting.

Question for my Jewish (and Jewish-aware) readers: Thursday is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust rememberance day), so instead of my usual "daf bit" in the morning service, I'd like to do something on-theme. It has to be a teaching, something that would qualify as torah study, which rules out most of the readings that tend to show up in special services for the day. Any suggestions? I could probably find something in Lamentations, if that's not cliche, but I'm not really sure. And naturally, I do not wish to offend with a bad choice people who are old enough to remember.

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customer service

when policies collide

Dear Giant Eagle,

You have made it abundantly clear that your parking lot is for use only by your customers while they are shopping in your store. Even though Kosher Mart is across the street from you, I try my best to honor that: if I am shopping at both stores, I will park on the street if I can do so within a block or so. It is true that when I've planned to buy a whole cart-load of stuff from you and just a couple packs of meat from across the street, I have used your lot anyway if there is no street parking. But I have at least tried to honor your policy, because I understand about slippery slopes.

I also acknowledge that you apparently have a problem with the theft of shopping carts. Your signs about this being theft are apparently not doing the job for you.

However, it was still a surprise to me today to find that you had -- with no posted notice -- installed some sort of electronic security system such that it was impossible for me to move the cart past your walkway and onto the public sidewalk. I was not thrilled to have to shuttle my groceries from your door to my car down the block in several trips. (Mind, at least I can, unlike some of your customers.) No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

Well, now I know: I should just park in your lot, at least until you install the sensors that will detect bags from Kosher Mart being carried through your airspace.

But to end on a positive note, I would like to commend you for being open today, unlike your larger store in Edgewood. I guess being in a Jewish neighborhood is good for something. :-)

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customer service

personal service

I want to switch the prescriptions for my maintenance drugs to the community pharmacy that has been providing such good service with prescriptions for my cats. I have a mail-order option, but they're kind of a hassle to deal with and not that much cheaper (especially since prices went up this year). I'd rather patronize a local establishment -- which, by the way, will deliver to my door, so it's no less convenient.

First I called the pharmacy to give them my insurance information, and the owner took the call. Then I called my ophthamologist's office to ask them to call in the prescription, and my doctor took the call (and recognized my voice before I told her who was calling). Heh. I didn't expect that degree of personal involvement, but it's one of the reasons I like dealing with small businesses.

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good customer service

Wednesday night our DSL was out, not for the first time (we get little glitches, and occasionally outages of an hour or so). This one ran longer than usual, so around 10PM I called to report it. I got the same person I've always gotten when I call, no matter what time; it's the same person who sold me the service in the first place.

Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Our service has been out for a couple hours. I've done the usual debugging and power-cycling.

Him: It seems to be you. Happen much?

Me: We get this from time to time. Is it likely to be our 1999 modem?

Him: Yeah. I'll send you a new one, or you can come pick one up.

Me: I wouldn't have expected our service to come with a free modem. I was going to buy one.

Him: I'm happy to send it.

It came in today's mail, so as soon as we hit Radio Shack for some filters, we should be good to go. Kudos, Nidhog!

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customer disservce, thy name ist Verizon

Dani and I have had a (family) cell-phone plan with Verizon for more than two years. This means we're elligible to upgrade phones, but we hadn't done anything about it because our plain old phones are mostly fine. Our biggest complaint has been battery life (if Verizon would just send us batteries we'd be happy), and a couple weeks ago we bought batteries.

Wednesday 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.

( Read more... )

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. :-)