Former longtime loyal customer

[jdh0721]

My name is “John Smith” and I was a loyal customer with Verizon for more than 20 years.  For years, I recommended Verizon for its network capacity, reliability, and service.  Sadly, I recently decided to switch to a competitor carrier, and while I may change carriers again in the future, I’ve determined that there are numerous factors that will prevent me from ever returning to Verizon.  I’ll not focus on the initial impetus for my decision to change carriers except to say that I, like many before me, finally decided to take advantage of all the benefits of being a “new” customer.  While I don’t necessarily agree with it, I recognize and acknowledge that it is the nature of business, particularly within publicly traded organizations, to prioritize marketing for new business over the retention of old customers.  I understand this focus for Verizon and If that were my only grievance, I never would have composed this letter.  It is all the misses and issues before and after the switch that I believe need to be brought to your attention.

As I noted to begin, I was a loyal Verizon customer for more than 20 years.   At the time of my change, I was paying for 6 lines of service.  I realized that both of my children were using phones that were well past their prime and needed replacement and that my wife’s phone also was due for an upgrade.  I still hoped to maintain my relationship with Verizon.  So, I logged into the website, using my MyVerizon access, and tried to take advantage of the myriad “free” phone offers, only to find that I only qualified if I opened a new line of service or increased the price of my service and traded in a nearly new phone.  I tried changing tactics, hoping to communicate with a specialist, and tried the “Chat” function in my Verizon app; unfortunately, on 3 separate occasions, there was no response for more than an hour as the “waiting for a representative” message simply stalled.  Finally, I made the trip to a Verizon store, but the representatives there reiterated that, even with the knowledge that they would lose me as a customer to the competition, there wasn’t anything they could do for me.

With disappointed resignation, I turned to the competition and transferred my service.  Once I ported my number to the new carrier, a whole new series of problems occurred.  The first issue was my immediate inability to access my account.  Even though I still needed to payoff several devices and make payments to the account, the access via website and app were both denied.  Since I could not access my account remotely, I decided to visit a store to resolve the issue.  Unfortunately, when I asked for assistance with this at the store, they informed me that only a “corporate location” was able to access disconnected accounts.  This was not a kiosk in the mall, this was a free-standing Verizon store.  There are no obvious indicators of which locations are corporate and which are independent dealers.  When I found the corporate location, they were still unable to help me at the store.  Instead they gave me a phone number that I had to call to pay-off my two devices.  After 30 minutes of wading through dial-up menus and waiting for customer service, I finally was successful.   Even then, though, I was not done, as my final bill had not been determined.

After a week or two, I received an email indicating that my final bill was now ready.  There was even a link there that I could access to pay it off (Sign in to a disconnected mobile account).  When I tried to use the link, however, I only received an error message that account information did not match their records.  So, I once again trudged back to the Verizon store.  I also recalled, at that point, that I’d used the Verizon credit card for more than a year and had over $50 in “Verizon Dollars” when I’d last checked.  I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to use some of the bonus I’d accumulated.  The representative at the store indicated that they were able to process a payment by cash or credit card, but that they did not have the ability to use Verizon Dollars and they again referred me to a customer service phone number to try for resolution.  Once again, I worked through the system until I was able to speak with someone.  The first 5 minutes was spent explaining what Verizon Dollars were, then next 25 minutes were spent trying to use the weblink noted above, using different names and phone numbers, even though he could verify that the number, name, and zip code that I was entering matched the information on the account.  Finally, after another 15 minutes, much of it on hold while he conferred with someone else, he informed me that my Verizon Dollars were no longer valid because they were tied to the account that was closed.  Surprised and caught totally unaware of this policy, I asked to be escalated to a supervisor to discuss my options.   The representative said that he would be happy to do so and that he would transfer me directly to his supervisor; the next message I heard was a recording indicating that my hold time would be approximately 80 minutes.  Not surprisingly, I hung up.

In summary, here are the factors that prevent me from returning to Verizon:

• A focus on new customers at the expense of retaining loyal customer base.
• Too much reliance on automated systems which creates three issues.
  1. Slow and/or no response from these systems with little recourse if they fail.
  2. Lack of knowledge from customer-facing employees who point to automated systems to resolve issues.
  3. Customer frustration as they wade through often ambiguous or irrelevant information.
• Extraneous Store Locations
  1. Its confusing to have corporate and non-corporate stores with different capabilities.
  2. The physical store should be the final option for a customer to be able to address any issue with their account.  There should be a person they can speak with, face to face, to resolve ANY issue.
• Abrupt and dismissive treatment of disconnected customers; making it so difficult to conclude account business seems almost petulant.  In a market that experiences so much churn, respect should be afforded these potential return customers.  

[MeltedSunflower622]

I'm with you on this. I've been and still am a over 20 year Verizon customer and loyal. I absolutely hate that there is nothing as far as deals as good as new customers get for existing customers. You'd think you'd do something to keep the ones you have just as much as new ones. Businesses don't seem to understand that if you don't have customers, you don't have a business. 

Recently I've been thinking hard about switching. We don't get deals on new phones anymore bc I won't switch to an unlimited plan and that's the only way to get a deal on a new phone. I won't switch to an unlimited plan because all of them are more money than what I'm paying now so why would I switch? Not to mention there are no more "family plans", everyone is on their own and why would I want that?

I'm currently mad that I've been using their promise payment option here and there for years. I've been using it more often recently, as we all know since COVID which still has an impact on the world, every month is a different struggle with money. Usually I'll make a promise to make a payment on a day but sometimes I don't have enough money that day but give me a day or two more and I'm good to go. Last month I made a promise payment but I was busy trying to make more money since I knew what I had in my account that day was extremely close to not being able to pay the whole amount. At 3pm I received a text message from Verizon thanking me for my recent payment on my account. Well first off, never ever since the start of the promise payment feature have they ever just taken the money out of my account on their own. Why start now? But the day wasn't over it was only 3pm, I still had hours in the day to log on and pay. What if they had put me over what I had in my account causing me to get a overdraft fee from the bank? Not to mention at that specific time I was on my way home, 6 hours away in another state and they just took all my money how the heck was I paying for gas to get home? After they took that money I was left with $5.11 in my account that had to get me through the week until Friday and it was only Saturday. Who gave them the right to just take my money when they did? They've never done that, ever. 

I have convinced so many people in my over 20 years of being a customer with them to either stay with them bc they'd mentioned switching from Verizon or switch to Verizon from their current carrier. I convinced my husband to come on my account which was not easy bc he had been on his dad's account with who they were using and even though he was supposed to pay the bill his dad never once asked him for any money and when he gave him money to pay the phone bill he'd always find it somewhere in his room later on. So I convinced him to go from not paying a phone bill to paying a phone bill. 

When we bought our house we learn that we could only use Comcast for Internet and TV in this area. 7 years later Verizon finally came here and I wasted no time switching to FiOS.

Whenever a discussion regarding phone carriers comes up with anyone I'm always the first to talk up Verizon and say everything positive I can about them. 

But what do I get for being an over 20 year loyal, encouraging others, positive speaking customer of Verizon's? .... NOTHING!

Nothing but an expensive overpriced phone bill with zero deals/savings. 

I can't even get a good offer on Verizon up except a slap in the face when they stopped giving me the Verizon dollars rewards (I forget what they were called). They realized the Dollar rewards were a good thing and people liked and benefited from them so they took them away. 

It's becoming really embarrassing to even talk positive about Verizon anymore let alone tell people I'm a customer with them. If looks could kill, I'd be dead just from the looks people give you when you say your a Verizon customer. 

[vzw_customer_support]

MeltedSunflower622, this is never the way we want you to feel about us, and we understand wanting to receive the best value for your money. We value your 20-year loyalty, and want to make sure we provide the account help you need. I know you mentioned taking advantage of the Promise to Pay option and that's great to hear as we always want to offer flexible payment options. From what you've shared, the payment was automatically taken out, and it sounds like a future dated payment was set up on your account, as part of the payment arrangement. Do you recall scheduling this on your account? What features are most important to you when considering a new plan?

~Izzy

[SynthpopAddict]

I will agree Verizon really needs to address their CS issues - having most of it overseas is extremely not helping them because I suspect that the call center doesn't have many rights to access anything Verizon.  And while I will give the company credit for having CS reps post in these forums, most of the time, it's like they're just reading off a script and aren't reading the threads before posting?  It's not much better than the other 2 guys, where one has some "forum experts" who do not work for the carrier doing the vast majority of answering threads, and the other apparently has no CS support at all.  And I don't get why redeeming promos with Verizon is such a Byzantine process.  Makes you wonder if these deals being offered to new customers are intentionally made super difficult to obtain so the majority, new or not, pay the going rate for service?

As for existing customers not getting the same promos as new ones, that can be said about other companies too, and not just wireless carriers.  Guess you could port your number every 2-3 years to take advantage of whatever offer sounds the best, but seems a bit of a hassle, never mind that there's always the chance the port could go wrong somehow, or the deal has some fine print making it actually not that great.  Or maybe the other guy's service is terrible in your area.

P.S. - 3rd party run stores with a carrier logo are also not unique to Verizon.  The Pink Logo Place does an even better job in my area with "fake" (3rd party run) stores where they look exactly like the corporate stores run by Pink Logo Place.  At least the local 3rd party Verizon stores in my area look different and say they're authorized dealers...

[ChickFarmer]

We too had issues with Verizon but somehow are still using them. 
As far as your Verizon dollars not being valid after the account was closed, don’t be surprised by that. Most any company does the same thing. 🙂

[Queenvwest]

You laid out your issues w Verizon in such an orderly way, I really feel for your frustrations! It is an insult to our integrity to be treated in such an aloof manner that you described. Verizon lost a loyal customer and you gave details of why you went elsewhere to do business. I hope your new carrier will be more appreciative of the “family” of business that they picked up from their new business “relationship” with you!