Service story
hardyvaguy
Enthusiast - Level 2

On Thu 7/19, about 3:00 PM, we had a close lightning strike.   Evidently hit a tree close to the house.  Almost immediately afterward, discovered no phone service / no DSL.  Check on several phones in the house, no dial tone at any.

Called Verizon.  Explained that we did have a lightning strike and that phones / DSL out (no dial tone).  OK, rep runs a line test says everything OK must be inside the house.  I object and go outside and check at the NIC box.  No dial tone there.  Rep now  agrees issue is outside the house.  Tells me the first available appt is Tue 7/24 in the afternoon.  Not happy.  Explain I work from home and no DSL is a real issue for me.  Also, I've just gotten over being one of those folks without power for 8 days and also had a four day phone/DSL outage then.  My sob story does no good.  Rep says he can't do better than five days out for a service call but then, he didn't even try to see if he had some avenue to do better.

OK.  Next day I check with some neighbors.  Guess what, I'm not the only one with no phone.  So I call Verizon back to see if there's possibility of getting earlier repair since multiple folks are out.  All the rep can say is that my outage has been attached to a group outage but can't tell me anything about possibility of repair earlier than 7/24.  OK, I'll be patient and wait.

Tue 7/24.  Wait all afternoon for someone to show up.  Wife and I are home all the time (remember - I work from home) and we have two very noisy dogs that would let us know if anyone came up the driveway.  About 6:30 PM I get an automated call from Verizon asking me to take a survey on the repair person.  Asks me if I'm the person who interacted.  When I press 2 for no, tells me they'll call back later when that person who interacted is available.  Absolutely no option to say 'never showed up'.

So I call Verizon.  Explain to the rep that I waited five days for a repair person and just got a survey call but that no repair person ever showed up.  Rep is 'sympathetic' (obviously playing to a script) and advises the case has been been closed with repair person saying service @ 4:57 PM.  Tells me the best he can do is to schedule another appt.  Tells me that he can get a repair person out Sat 7/28.  I was livid !  I waited 5 days for the repair from my first call, tech doesn't show up at the house and now I'm being told I have to wait another 4 days.  I was not nice.  What really galled me was no attempt (other than script pablum) to get me fixed.  Rep told me best he could do was to call 'dispatch' and see if they could get someone hear earlier.  I told him that I wanted a supervisor to call me back with 1) an explanation of what the tech did and 2) plan to have a technician here the following day.

About an hour later, supervisor calls.  Tells me that dispatch says they can't send anyone before Sat.  I went ballistic.  I advised her that was not acceptable.  Questioned that I could not believe they had no process to handle this kind of scenario.   Advised her I wanted her to pursue it and that I would, if necessary, expedite this to whatever the highest local executive level in our service area the next day.  I was extremely persistent and not polite (gave up on that several calls ago).  Tells me that they can 'forward' my number to another phone temporarily.  I let her know that DSL is also out, I work from home so I'm hosed.  Sheepish 'Oh' from her side.  She agrees she'll pursue it further and call me back within an hour.

While I wait for her call, I get another 'survey' call on our 'repair person interaction'.

OK, about 1/2 an hour later supervisor calls back.  Tells me that I will have repair person on Wed 7/25.  Amazing !!  After being told several times 'we have no way to do this' they make it happen.  Tells me that the repair person had checked something on a pole (all our service is under ground, nearest pole is 1/2 mile away) and he thought it could be a cable problem.  I asked why did he then close the ticket without  a) checking with us to see if issue was resolved or b) forwarding to the 'cable' folks for a follow up repair and advising us of status.  Couldn't answer.  Did ask me if we had recently had a storm in the area and I told her that I told the rep about the lightning strike on my very first call !!  I did thank her for her diligence and that her final behavior (and result) is what customer service is supposed to be about.

About 15 mins after I get off that call, I get an automated call from Verizon telling me my problem has been corrected.  Can you believe that !!

This morning, bright and early, I get a call from the tech who's supposed to show up today and telling me when he expects to be here.  That's the way this should work and I'm hopeful I'll have service by the end of the day.   

Anyone  from Verizon care to comment ?  If you do, make it a meaningful answer with some depth.  If all you're going to do is give a canned reply, don't bother.

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Re: Service story
hardyvaguy
Enthusiast - Level 2

I should have noted that all the calls referenced were with my cell not my landline.  As soon as I got that first survey call, I immediately verified that we still had no service at the NIC.

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Re: Service story
hardyvaguy
Enthusiast - Level 2

Resolved !!  Tony showed up at 1:00 (1 hr before he thought he would get here).  He started working from the NIC box back.  Within an hour I had phone service / DSL back.  Lightning had blasted some connections in a culvert service box at the bottom of the driveway.  Thanked Tony profusely and let him know that Verizon should be thankful they have employees like him.

So Verizon - why didn't the repair person who was supposed to have fixed the problem yesterday find this when Tony found it so quickly.  Oh yes, that repair person didn't even come to the house !!  And why did I have to 'kick and scream' with the call center folks to get someone out today when Verizon clearly screwed this up by not servicing the problem yesterday.