I lost my brother to brain cancer about 4 months ago. He was 51. As the executor or personal representative of his estate, I've been managing his estate to pay bills, close accounts, etc. With every business, hospital, individual and government entity that I've worked with to settle his accounts, the process has been mostly straightforward and has often involved a dedicated customer service group that helps escalate and expedite probate issues.
With Verizon, the experience to shut down my deceased brother's account and return his phone has been horrendous. Over a 4-5 month period, I have called Verizon probably 10+ times to speak to different customer service representatives. My brother's daughter and I have visited three separate Verizon stores in three different states to seek assistance with the return of his phone--one of the stores was a corporate store in my home state of Colorado. I've been told on 4-5 occasions that a pre-packaged box and/or label would be sent to my home address. This hasn't happened. When I visited a corporate store--based on direction from the customer service line--I was told by the corporate store that they could not help me and that I needed to call customer service. As all of this activity has unfolded, bills continue to arrive showing a balance for his yet-to-be-returned phone. As the situation seemed to get worse with time, I called Verizon's corporate office and was routed to an offshore call center. When I finally was connected with a supervisor that person said she would call me back, which didn't happen. I'm guessing that I've probably spent between 10-15 hours total on this situation...maybe more.
I'm posting to this forum hoping that someone will help me connect with someone in Verizon's Customer Experience c-suite. I mainly want to be able to explain what part of their customer XP workflow is broken and help those in charge of these processes improve the situation so others in my position aren't subjected to such poor business process and customer service; especially while processing--and managing--the loss of a loved one. It's an indignity that a company this size--who offers mostly communication products and services--should stop inflicting on its customers.
And lastly, if this forum topic is supposed to be tied to improvements for the online community, my recommendation is to add a new forum topic for "recommended customer service improvements."
We are sorry to read that you had this negative experience, as this is never what we want for any of our customers to go through, specially when going through a situation as hard as the one you're going through. We can definitely forward any feedback you might have, as our goal is to always provide you with the best experience. We will be sending you a private note to better assist you.
~Freddy
Start a new topic or ask questions in the open forum.
