I know I’m not alone [...]]]>

Having recently gone through my own personal quest to get Verizon to repair my landline, I feel compelled to share five tips to get better information and results out of the phone company. Business owners may want to note 3-5 in case they run into problems since they apply equally well.

I know I’m not alone in being frustrated with Verizon and in all honestly I believe the company has either intentionally or unintentionally adapted an “abandon in place” strategy for its landline business, given the number of stories I’ve heard from other people when it comes to landlines.

Every quarter, Verizon announces that they’ve lost thousands upon thousands of landline customers. But why? The company says its because of a migration to wireless services, belt-tightening, and so forth.   They don’t talk about why many customers have, upon going through the rat race of trying to get dial tone fixed, gone to cable providers dial-tone alternatives.

There’s also the not-so-subtle push of FiOS when people call and complain about copper problems. “Well, you won’t have those problems if you get fiber,” says the first-line call center people.  They don’t mention the all-day install it takes to get FiOS turned up.

If you are bound and determined — or have no other alternative — here are the five points I offer if you have to deal with Verizon to get a landline fixed.

1)  “Attendant” is the magic word to get you through the voice recognition maze to a real human being.

After the second or third phone call, the auto-attendant robot just gets in the way.  Attendant cuts through all the crap and routes you to a real human being in a call center.  But don’t expect this to be an advancement.

2) If the first person to answer the phone doesn’t seem to know what’s going on, ask for a supervisor.

Call center people are, by and large, paid to get you off the phone as fast as possible. They’re reading from scripts and sometimes they don’t follow the full script and/or read through the full trouble report on the computer.   I’ve had multiple call center people tell me everything was fine with my line — with a truck outside and no dial-tone on the line — and all I had to do was to unplug everything on the line, wait 5 minutes, and then plug everything back in. By and large, there’s no love lost between the call center people and the line techs who actually fix things.

Supervisors are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neigh-bor-hoood… the people who you might meet each day — not someone in a call center 500 to 2,000 miles away reading from a script.  You should get a straight and coherent answer from one.

If one isn’t available, ask for a supervisor to call you back.  Someone will.

3) Document

If you have to call more than once or twice, start writing down names, dates, times, and who said what.   Promises are sometimes made by call center people and supervisors that don’t happen — and that leaves you with nothing.   If that’s the case, then the next step is to….

4) File a complaint with the state regulatory commission

In the state of Virginia, you can file a complaint against Verizon online with the State Corporate Commission (SCC) Division of Communications.  Under state regs, Verizon has to resolve about 90 percent of phone problems within the first 48 hours of you filing a trouble ticket.  I filed online at around 10 AM, the SCC filed with Verizon by noon, and someone from Verizon was out looking at my line by 5:30 PM.   A SCC complaint sets the clock ticking and Verizon gets serious about clearing the up the problem ASAP.

5) Call the President of Verizon in your state

All Verizon employees know this one.  You won’t get the president, but leave a message that clearly details the problem. It automatically gets flagged as a priority and people start running around trying to fix the problem.   NO, I don’t have the number for Verizon VA, but I know where to get it if I need it.  You should be able to find the number you need to call on the internet.

Within a few hours, Comcast’s “hit squad” was following up on John’s post, and Tweeting back to me on a comment I made to John about the existence of the [...]]]>

Clone-Wars DIGEX colleague John Todd had some issues with his Comcast service a couple of days ago and posted his difficulties on social media (Facebook, Twitter).

Within a few hours, Comcast’s “hit squad” was following up on John’s post, and Tweeting back to me on a comment I made to John about the existence of the organization.  Comcast has a dedicated group of peeps skimming through social media to follow up on publicized customer problems.

Given my own recent dark experiences with Verizon, I can only point to Comcast’s efforts as the latest of a number of data points demonstrating that cable companies “get it” when it comes to customer service, and the traditional telephone companies have “lost it.”

Unfortunately, the “traditional” telecom media is out to lunch on this issue.  Nobody (yes, you Wall Street analysts believing what you are told) has factored this into the losses of landlines — it’s easier to blame losses to tighter home budgets, wireless, and millennials than own up to a steady decline in the values and quality for customer service and repair in the landline biz.

Much to my surprise, the auto-bot said the trouble ticket had been closed. Once again, using the magic word “Attendant” to cut through the voice recognition robot, I got a live human being who said [...]]]>

This morning, I called Verizon’s number to see what time a tech would be out to look at my dead landline

Much to my surprise, the auto-bot said the trouble ticket had been closed. Once again, using the magic word “Attendant” to cut through the voice recognition robot, I got a live human being who said that the line had been “fixed” at 9:30 AM.

I expressed my dismay, since 1) The tech hadn’t knocked on the door and 2) how was I supposed know that the line was fixed? Oh and 3) I still did not have dial tone.

So, we went into the rote script of “Unplug all of your phones for five to ten minutes, then plug back in a standard phone and see if you have dial tone” and if that doesn’t work — call back and ask a supervisor.

Did as instructed. No dial tone in the home. Call back. Ask to speak to a supervisor. All supervisors are busy.

“Can I have the name of a supervisor?” “They’re a pool”

“Can I have a direct number so I won’t have to deal with the auto-attendant?” “There’s no direct number.”

Call ends with me asking for a supervisor to call me back at my alternative phone number and being assured someone will call me back today.

Uh huh.

My Verizon landline died sometime yesterday. I placed a service call last night and was told the latest someone would show up would be July 13 – seven days from the time I [...]]]>

If you want to know one of the supporting reasons why Verizon continues to lose landlines, it boils down to one word: service.

My Verizon landline died sometime yesterday. I placed a service call last night and was told the latest someone would show up would be July 13 – seven days from the time I placed the call.

Seriously, WTF?

A test from the CO indicated that yes, indeedie, there was a problem, so a truck roll was scheduled. Iif a dispatcher could get someone out there earlier,  Verizon might be able to get someone out there; could I please provide two (2) other phone numbers to reach someone at the household.  So they have a “work” number (which, BTW, is a Cox phone line working fine) and a mobile number.

Other highlights of my call: “Did I check the dial tone access on the box outside?” No.  When did checking dial tone on the box outside become standard operating procedure?   “Work on the inside of the house is covered, you pay for maintenance…” Yes, we do,  but this apparently doesn’t get a truck roll out to me any sooner despite paying the extra $3 and change.

All this gives me flashbacks to when I moved about 3 years ago and tried to get service to my new house. It was almost literally a move across the street — no change in CO, no restart in billing, should have been a piece of cake.

Instead, it was a NIGHTMARE.

One phone number was supposed to be transferred over the weekend, but the house owners left their service on.   I called service, took time out of my day on a Friday, and was PROMISED that would be out that day.  10 AM rolled into noon, and I called Verizon again. “Someone will be out by 3 PM”… 3 PM rolled into 4, called again … “Someone will be out by 6 PM”… 6 PM came and went. “We can’t send someone out today, we’ll send someone out tomorrow.”

Saturday came and went, nobody showed up.

Monday rolls around, the dial tone from the previous owners ends and STILL no truck roll.  I call again, am told that because the previous owners didn’t have service turned off, they have rescheduled the truck roll — because they just CAN’T turn up service without a truck roll once the line is turned off — for two weeks later, thank you very much.

Since I live in a cell phone “dead zone” and have a small child, I am not f***ing pleased. I ask for a supervisor and tell her I had a live phone line in the house until yesterday, could she PLEASE try to do something in the switch?

And… 5 minutes later late on Monday I have one of two phone lines turned on. Lot of apologies about how Verizon was switching to a new dispatch/service system…. and that’s it.  No service credit, no paper…

Line number two came up after a truck roll about two weeks later.

A month or two after that, I called up Cox and moved line number two off Verizon.   The cable company gave me a TWO HOUR window when the tech would be out and it took them less than an hour to:

1) Find the right cable

2) Install the equipment on the side of the house

3) Switch the phone number out of Verizon’s CO over to their CO.

It would have been MUCH LESS than an hour, but the installer was training a new guy, so he was taking his time showing the rookie how to do things right, including nicely cutting the cable guys. In addition,  there was about 5-10 minutes on hold with the service center because it was lunch time.

Now, which would you prefer, a two hour service window, or a seven day service window? Cable may have gotten a bad rap for customer service in the past, but they’re kicking Verizon’s rear in my neighborhood today.