We decided to get new phones for cheap in exchange for promising that we'll remain Verizon Wireless customers for another two years. It was not a pretty experience...
We went to a local store and browsed the gazillion phones and I started hyperventilating and we left. We shopped online instead. Their web store made me grumpy. I had to reenter information I had already entered when a reasonably designed shopping site would have remembered it for me. After re-re-reentering information I finally hit the "I'm done, let's pay for it" button. Their web site said that an error occurred and I had to start over. I started over and at the end the same error occurred. I did it a third time. This time when I said I'm done it showed me what I was ordering: six phones and six sets of accessories. All this time their shopping cart icon at the top of the page assured me that it had been empty. Then, their poorly designed shopping cart made it very hard for me to empty it and redo things yet another time.
Next day: American Express put a hold on the charge because I hadn't used that card with Verizon before and it raised some sort of red flag. Verizon took the hold to be a full rejection and they canceled my order. I called Verizon to try to straighten things out and first person I talked to transfered me to the money end of the business and was on hold for at least 10 minutes. The person there had no idea why I had been sent to her and she transfered me back to customer service. This customer service person tried to fix things and get the order redone but needed to call me back in the morning right when he gets in at 8:30. He never called.
I tried their online store again and it would not let me in. When I signed in it told me that I could not use that service and I needed to call customer service.
So I called back and spent an hour haggling with the nice person who was stuck with me. I reluctantly ended up spending more money than I had bargained for on the Internet but now that's done and I can put this all behind me. Susan, the very nice Verizon person, handles very unhappy customers very well. She deserves a bonus.
But there is a lot of residual grumpiness. The phones are supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I hope we like them. They have cameras for our blogging pleasure!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
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9 comments:
There There (pat pat)
And now for my Rant. If a company offers a phone and calls it Chocolate, why do they not offer the color chocolate or at least white chocolate in all markets? Especially since all of their advertising was for the Chocolate in chocolate and NOW COMES IN WHITE CHOCOLATE. I'm sure I'll be happy with my Chocolate phone in cherry chocolate, but.....
Whew! What an ordeal. It seems that with more and more technology, customer service is going down the tubes. I'm glad you got it straightened out. What a pain!
When Michele and I bought the bookstore, we inherited an LED indoor display sign that the previous owner had bought several years ago. It had been scrolling the same message for years, and I figured it would be a good idea to learn to program it with appropriate seasonal messages, info about events, new books, etc. Naturally, the instructions for programming the sign were nowhere to be found.
So our manager hauled out the ladder, climbed up, and read me the URL, phone number, model number, serial number, and any other identifying particular he could find. I called the number and explained that I needed the instructions for programming the particular model. And then I had this conversation with a woman in “customer service” (and I’m using that phrase so loosely it rattles).
“Who sold the unit to you?”
“I don’t know. The previous owner bought it.”
“Well, who sold it to her?”
“I don’t know. She bought it at the annual toy fair in New York several years ago.”
“Do you know the name of the sales rep at the toy fair who sold it to her?”
“No, I don’t. But I have the model number and serial number.”
“I can’t give the programming instructions to you without knowing who sold it to you. Who sold it to you?”
“Nobody sold it to me! Somebody else bought it! I just want you to send me the instructions for this particular model.”
“Oh! Okay. I understand. May I put you on hold?” Some minutes later another person came on the line.
“Allo? Can I help dzjoo?”
“Yes, I need the instructions for a specific LED display. I have the serial number and model number here.”
“Dzjoo hab da zerial numbah? Ah canna find da instruction by da zerial numbah or da model numbah. Dzjoo hab da nabe of da zales rep who sold dzjoo da zign?”
“No. No one sold me a sign.”
“Zen why you need da instructions?”
“Somebody else bought the sign. I now have the sign. I need the instructions.”
“Oh! I got him! Dzjes! I understand!”
“Thank you!”
“Hau-KAY! I got him. I can help dzjoo. Foist, dzjoo hab da nabe of da zales rep who sold dzjoo da zign?”
Peggie's story is the best. But I can understand the LED people's response. After all, what if she had been a terrorist planning to broadcast unflattering comments on President Bush. We're talking homeland security here. I got Verizon wireless too, but haven't had any problems yet. Chuck has proved to be a better blogger than I.
Peggie, Speaking of your bookstore, you might start a bookstore blog. Other commercial enterprises have done this, ex: http://woolypigs.blogspot.com/
You can set your blog to allow you to vet any comments before they appear online. It would compliment your web site. You could post interviews, your own book reviews, photos, whatever. Since it's free, it doesn't matter if it bombs. I don't know why I've become such a tout for blogspot.
I admire your patience and fortitude, Chuckbert. I would have given up after the first five attempts. Not only that, but all these years I have supposed any problems I had with web sites was due to my being computer challenged. Now I think maybe it might not have been all my fault after all. And I sure hope your phones work O.K.
I had a similar experience yesterday and today. We had a new fridge delivered on Saturday, and when we removed a couple stickers from the front, we found they were concealing a couple small dents. So I emailed Sears, and they emailed back to call the local store.
I called the local store. I got passed back and forth and back and forth.....put on hold interminably, when it rang back (which happens when you're on hold too long), the guy was upset with me for calling again (!) and finally I got through to someone.
"OH, we can't help you. You need to call delivery services...they are the ones who deal with delivery problems and--"
"OK, please transfer me."
"OH, I can't transfer you. It is an 800- number and you'll have to call them directly and--"
"Please give me the number!"
So, I called them and arranged for an exchange. Then we started re-thinking it, and decided maybe we could live with the small dents if they could give us some sort of monetary break. It was a pain to have to deal with the water hookup and waiting for the ice maker (YAY!) to get up to speed, etc, not to mention having to unload and load it again. Today, I called Delivery Services back.
The nice lady told me she could give me a $75 Sears gift card.
"Is that the best you can do?"
"Well, the maximum is $90."
"I'll talk to my family and I'll call you back with what we decide."
"OK, it's all here in our notes, so call whenever you are ready."
Indeed, we decided it would be a pain to exchange, so I called to inform them this afternoon that we'd like the $90 gift card.
"Just a minute ma'am, while I look at your file."
*on hold interminably*
"OK, ma'am. I have that your $90 gift card has been processed and your delivery is scheduled for Friday the 1st. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
!!!!!!!!!
I guess incompetence goes both ways.
Oh, man. It sounds like Karen was steamed (an' Karen don't like bein' steamed). Sears is lucky they didn't get a letter.
So far, I have been very lucky with Verizon on-line. I got a new phone last summer...it's NOT a Chocolate or a Razr, but it works pretty well. Actually, there's more operator error than anything else. It's a flip phone and I had it programmed to answer when I flipped it open. Unfortunately, it would flip shut before I could answer, so I hung up on a few people at the start. I programmed it for an "any key" answer to stop that nonsense.
And, Bratling, I haven't had problems with Sears, either. I think they have been following your progress since the fiasco when you lived in New Jersey ;-)!
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