I had a great customer experience today with Verizon Wireless and I thought I'd share it with you readers because the background is similar to the awful experience I had with AT&T a while back that caused me to leave a forfeit any chance at all those great services that I'll never see. You see like AT&T, I am not in Verizon's footprint for local and I'll be shut out. I only have one chance for service and unlike the new, new, really we want your business AT&T, Verizon wanted to keep it.
So, here's what happened. Like a good customer, I had online statements and credit card billing (same as AT&T) for my Verizon Wireless service. A month back I had to switch my credit card and went online to do it and received no error message. However, it didn't take so I went back in and updated it again. Then Verizon went to bill me and wham, it didn't take (now 2 months late) so they generated some hate mail and a late charge.
Now I'm upset because I did everything I was supposed to do and still got the cold shoulder. I picked up the phone, called credit and collections, paid my bill, and of course complained to the person on the other end of the phone. She couldn't help me with my credit or bill setup problem, so she transferred me which further fired me up; figuring she was playing the transfer the irate customer phone game.
Now enters customer service woman #2, who got an earful of why I didn't deserve to be treated this way. She agreed, removed my charge, and then stayed on the phone when I went through the process of restarting my credit card billing. Sounds good so far right? Wait it gets better. While going through the process, customer service woman #2 looked up my account and realized my calling pattern changed and I was paying for too many minutes that I haven't used in months. So, she downgraded me which saved me $20 per month.
Now that is a GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE CALL. Sure Verizon looks like they lost $20 per month, but was smart enough (unlike the new, really bad service AT&T) to value my business and take a longer term view. It is too bad that the FCC won't provide an environment to let these two compete against each other because Verizon would eat AT&T's lunch and have Cingular for dessert - ooops, AT&T already ruined that.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
I have had a similar experience with Verizon Wireless every time I go into the store, or speak with them on the phone. They always check my usage and let me know if another plan better fits my current needs, seems my phone usage changes pretty regularly.
They certianly get how to do Customer Service, which is something the old AT&T Wireless never understood.
Posted by: Jeff Herz | January 25, 2007 at 10:41 AM
Jeff, I'm glad you posted to show that it wasn't just my account. I'd expect more bad service from the new, new, new AT&T.
Posted by: PardonMyFrench | January 25, 2007 at 04:53 PM