A New Telco Record

I received this through someone I know that is a totally reliable person who if they say this happened it did. But this is very much anecdotal proof of how life in the experience economy reigns and is certainly food for thought. If we were still a product based world than the outcome would be the important thing. But here is another case with an outcome that is satisfactory but an experience that is horrific and thus the overall value to Verizon and to the customer is entirely negative - well into the realm of freezing temperatures - a significant loss in trust and respect and another customer who is headed on out the door. Yet, imagine, Verizon has lower industry churn rates (1.43% is what The Wireless Weblog says that Verizon Wireless says that their churn rate is, at least) than any other telco. God help us all if that's the case. Start planning for that Category 7 hurricane. Its raining frogs.

Having recently gone through the worst customer "service" experience of my life in a 2+ weeks, 32 hour, over the phone and online experience with Verizon, I was amazed this morning to find out that Peppers and Rogers 1 to 1 is considering actually recognizing Verizon for best customer value practices. 22 months ago in moving 15 miles north from Baltimore City to Baltimore County I was told I couldn't transfer my Verizon DSL service to my new home, I'd have to turn in my equipment and request new service for our new home. So after driving into a relatively unsafe neighborhood in Baltimore to physically return the equipment, in the middle of our home moving logistics (since it "couldn't be mailed") I investigated Comcast Broadband service, which was faster, so I decided not to request Verizon DSL for our new home. Last month, when we were trying to resolve another issue on our Verizon bill, which eventually lead to our home service being disconnected, we discovered a $40. monthly charge for Verizon DSL. When I asked about it we discovered that it had been billed monthly for the last 21 months since our move to the new house. When I pointed out the error and explained that we'd not ordered it, not gotten equipment to activate it, not used it since we weren't aware of it's existence, we were told that its been available to us and whether we use it or not is not the issue- "would we like to cancel OUR SERVICE?". "No, we didn't know about or have service or any way to access it and we'd like our money back!" yielded an offer of 3mo. credit which they would be willing to "give us". It's not a matter of "giving us" anything its a matter of returning the money they erroneously changed us for 21 months, yielded a response of "well, 3 months is the best I can do for you". From there the story becomes a bizarre,what looked like an endless saga of being told that I've exhausted my appeal process; elevation to supervisors that echoed the "policy"; transfers back and forth between residential service to Verizon On Line (supposedly a separate legal entity); a supervisor granting an "unheard of 6 months of credit" , literally being called "Stupid" for not checking my monthly bill; endless navigating through ever changing (" our options may have changed") phone tree menus; entering, saying and repeating my phone number over and over again and again; promises to get back to me within 24 hours which after at least 72 hours I'd have to follow up on by starting over from the beginning; being granted an "unprecedented gift" of 12 months credit and told there is no further appeal as an option for me "they'd already done more than they should have for us". After that and having collected sympathy and similar but not quite as bad stories from other Verizon customers, I decided to put an end to this frustration by going to the Chairman's Office in NYC. I was first referred to the executive issue resolution email hotline ecenter@verizon.com where I was to get an immediate confirmation of the receipt of my issue. 26 hours later I got my receipt and promised a response within 24 hours. 48 hours later pointed out that there had not yet been a response to my issue I'd reported over 72 hours ago. I sent subsequent updates of non responsiveness and finally gave up after a week and a half (its now been almost 3 weeks and I have yet to receive a single response) I called the executive offices again and was given a "Special Executive Issue Resolution Number" I called went through an extensive phone menu and was of course asked to verify it all again before I actually got to talk to the specially trained real live person who for the first time listened to my whole story without interruption to quote policy or insult me in the interim. She explained that I'd reached the right place and that this is where issues that come to the attention of the Chairman get resolved. I was promised a call within 24 hours to correct the problem and given an 800 # to call if I needed it or so Chris at ext.0334 explained. 2 and a half days later when I worked my way through 2 phone trees to get back to Chris, who wasn't allowed to give me a direct # (after all this is a telephone company), she said that her internal contacts that were "investigating" my claim hadn't gotten back to her yet, but she assured me she'd call back within 24 hours with an "update" this time. Today 3 days later I tried to work my way back through the same phone trees and was told there was no way to know who Chris was or how to reach her. I was given another phone menu to try and told to push"3" for unresolved issues All of this after having gotten through to the usual obligatory supervisor for whom I always had to wait on hold for at least 30 minutes. After pushing 3 at the prompt for unresolved executive issue the line went dead- no acknowledgement of any kind, having been well trained by now, I waited 30 min. while the call was still connected to what was apparently a telephonic "Black Hole" before having to start all over again, this time determined not to let ANYONE forward me, tell me how lucky I'd been to have been 12 month's credit, send me to anyone in another entity, etc. etc. etc. I insisted that this issue would be addressed and resolved before anyone left the call! Between 2 supervisors from 2 entities on a call that lasted yet another hour, I was able to get an admission for THEIR ERROR and full credit for the money incorrectly billed for the 21 months. I'm sorry to say this is the worst story I've ever been told and unfortunately it had to have happened to me. This saga took 32 hours of my time to resolve a less than $850. error, which at my normal consulting billing rate cost me $12,800. in lost revenue to settle a simple customer service principle. I can only hope that it will cost Verizon more in customer confidence over time by continuing to live with poor customer service attitudes, lack of responsiveness, inefficient processes, poor policies, multiple entity lack of coordination and communication and just plain insensitivity and intolerance of legitimate customer concerns. Also by my retelling of my story, I hope that "1 to 1" think seriously before featuring Verizon as a Customer Valued or Valuing company! My story- as told by a Senior Customer Relationship Consultant who knows bad practice when subjected to it.