Has anyone else begun to feel like Verizon has moved on regarding customer care and retention? I imagine at some point you can have such a massive client base, the single fish in the pond is not relevant. Reason I say this is due to an issue that happened yesterday and today.
I have been with Verizon for over 19 years - service has gotten expensive, but so has everything else. Last night, I attempted to purchase an Apple Watch, and the system bugged out; it charged me and removed money from Apple Pay for the taxes, but it would not complete the order. It actually tried charging twice, but fortunately, my Apple Pay was low on funds. It would have got me had I been using my bank account.
I then connected to live chat and the agent got frustrated with me, and when I refused to pay the taxes "again," she disconnected the chat. Nonetheless, I stayed on and 3 agents and 2.5 hours later, no watch and no resolution. Still have my money, and I have no watch. I have to say the remaining 3 agents were nice, but resolved nothing.
This morning, I decided to call and actually speak to a human being. The Verizon 800 number kept trying to send me to chat, so the third call I pushed zero and thank god, got a human. The first agent could not solve my problem, but was sympathetic to what I had gone through and connected me to another agent. That agent finally put in a ticket to try and get my money back. (Keep in mind, this really is not about the money, it has become the principle of the matter). During my call with this agent, I expressed that I was likely to leave the company and go to another provider. No real reaction - later she told me that once the money was refunded they could reprocess the order. I again explained I was contemplating leaving the Company. Her response: "Oh." I then asked for her to connect to what their version of customer retention is. (At this point it does seem obvious that there is not any significant training being done on customer recovery).
I am now at the 3rd agent of the day, 7th during this ordeal. This gentlemen was very knowledgeable and was able to look at my account and figure out in under 5 minutes, what 6 other agents could not do in over 3 hours. (Someone give this guy a raise and put him in charge of training). He confirmed that everything has been done to get the monies refunded. It was at this point it went from the "obvious" to the "absolute" no training or acknowledgement of customer recovery! He was about to end the call, but I was still looking for someone to say, "Wow, 19 years, we are sorry and we will own this." Anyway, I asked to speak to a Manager and he connected me.
I was on the phone for less than 10 minutes with manager. Unfortunately, not a lot of skill set in customer recovery at that level either. First, she kept talking over me and out of the 10 minutes, she did most of the talking. I had to finally ask her to stop and explain to her that under most customer recovery models, you want the customer to express their dissatisfaction and get it out in the air so you can address. She then actually said, "I am not sure I am understanding what you are looking for, are you looking for some type of compensation?" WOW - if I wasn't defensive then, she dang sure made sure I went there. I explained to her that I was not looking for compensation, but instead wanted someone in management to validate this as a horrible experience and they would own the matter. That means, what are you going to do in regards to my complaint about the agent disconnecting on me, and provided me with some assurance that my 19+ years as a client is important. It seemed like she actually did not get what I was trying to say, she then started going over how they would look at the tapes, talk to the Team Member, and coach them, but they wouldn't go after firing her (Who the heck said anything about termination)? On and on she went - I finally stopped her and told her that it appeared we were not seeing eye to eye and to avoid me being rude, I was just going to end this call and decide where I would take my business. She was "okay, bye."
So now I am going to wait for my refund and discuss with my wife actually leaving Verizon for one of their competitors. Sad to think of doing that after 19 years. I am laughing though - being asked directly if I wanted compensation in a tone that was negatively questioning me. NO I did not, but now that we are on the discussion, my current job, I charge on contract $250.00 per hour and in this case I spent 3.5 hours trying to address an issue caused by the Company. (This is a joke, I am not serious).
I am serious though about leaving the Company. Hoping two things will happen here. One, I will hear from other customers to see if this systemic with the Company, or just a one off and it was my turn. If systemic, then maybe it really is time to leave. I may be a small fish in a rather large pond, but I am okay taking someone else's bait. Two, maybe between now and the refund, someone will make me feel better and valued for being a 19 year+ client.
Sorry for the long diatribe, but I do feel better. LOL - had to come up with my own method of doing that.
