Verizon, FYI

A quick follow-up about my adventures with phone service. You may recall I complained about (or rather to) Vonage, but then later admitted that I decided to stick with them anyway. (I’ll still waiting, by the way, for some hard evidence of bad customer service resulting in negative word of mouth that a serious material impact on a company or brand. Anybody?)

Anyway, here’s the end of my relationship with Verizon:

Dear Verizon, I thought someone there might be interested in knowing why I recently terminated my account.

I had used Verizon residential phone service for about two years, for my home office, in Jersey City, NJ. I had a consistent problem: After rain storms, there was frequently a great deal of static on the line, often to the point that the line was not usable. So I would have to call and go through all the steps of getting a technician to come out. They would always fix the problem at “the box,” or whatever, nothing in my apartment, some switch or connection outside the home. I probably did this between three and five times.

The most recent occurrence was particularly frustrating. First I scheduled an appointment and no one came.

So I scheduled another appointment. This time the guy had to come inside. I mentioned that this static problem is the same one I always have – surely it was in the database or customer records? No, he said, he didn’t have any prior history or records regarding my account.

Anyway, he did his tests or whatever and said the problem was not in the house, but elsewhere at the box or terminal or switch.

He also said that he needed to get into the back yard area of some other building. And that I would have to arrange this with the landlord of that building. Also, that he might need to get into my next-door neighbor’s backyard as well. So I would also have to work that out. In other words, I’d have to coordinate a time with the landlord (who I don’t know) of a building around the corner, and with my neighbor, when we would all be home for the usual many-hour-window that Verizon service requests call for. An entire day, basically.

Now, why is that my problem? I didn’t design your bizarre system of arranging terminals and switches and boxes in such an inconvenient fashion. Why do I have to take on the headache of making appointments with people all over my neighborhood? Why can’t your tech deal with that? It isn’t MY problem – it’s YOUR problem.

The tech shrugged all this off, said maybe he could come back on Saturday – I just needed to make sure the landlord and the neighbor would be home in those other buildings.

At this point I’d been without usable phone service for well over a week.

Phone service that, of course, I’d been paying for. I think I was paying you guys north of $70 a month.

So I had a choice.

1) I could spend time arranging my neighbor’s lives for the convenience of Verizon.
2) I could just stop paying you altogether, cancel my account, and sign on with an Internet-based phone service for about a third the price.

I chose number 2.

Just thought you’d want to know.

About a day later I got this:

Dear R. Walker,

Thank you for contacting the Verizon eCenter. My name is Tawana, and I will be handling your request today.

This message is in response to your email dated June 29, 2006. You inquired about your recent experience. I can certainly understand how frustrating that must have been.

We appreciate your feedback and I apologize for the difficulties you experienced.

I have forwarded your concerns to the appropriate management team for review. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your comments.

Thank you for using Verizon. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Tawana
Verizon eCenter

I’m assumin that this is a form letter, but one of several that someone at Verizon (who may or may not actually be named Tawana) had to choose from. I assume that this is the end of it, but if there’s more, I’ll let you know.