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.

Turns out they only need a couple of shovels.

Around the corner, the lead Verizon tech of the day found damage that apparently had come from/around work done on the cable company box — a finding that will, [...]]]>

At one point this morning, there were two Verizon trucks plus a contractor’s pickup with backhoe at the ready.

Turns out they only need a couple of shovels.

Around the corner, the lead Verizon tech of the day found damage that apparently had come from/around work done on the cable company box — a finding that will, no doubt, be something Verizon takes up with Cox and the VA SCC.

My copper has been spliced/fixed, the temp line has been restored, so all is happy in the world for now.

But still, why was I quoted up to seven days for someone to look at the initial problem? Why is Verizon having to haul techs up from Richmond to work through a backlog of repair tickets in Northern Virginia? Would I still be waiting for someone to look at my line today if I hadn’t dropped a dime (well, clicked a link) to the VA SCC?

I spent 10 minutes on the phone going over the repair status of my Verizon landline with a Verizon supervisor.  I currently have dial-tone through a temporary jury-rig (hmm, reminds me, must take pictures) between my NIC and my neighbor’s.

The sup was concerned that I didn’t get phone calls [...]]]>

Verizon supervisors work on Sundays, it appears.

I spent 10 minutes on the phone going over the repair status of my Verizon landline with a Verizon supervisor.  I currently have dial-tone through a temporary jury-rig (hmm, reminds me, must take pictures) between my NIC and my neighbor’s.

The sup was concerned that I didn’t get phone calls from either one of the techs who came out on Friday and Saturday.  I told them I wasn’t as torked off about that so much as the call center person who told me that my line was fix on Saturday, go unplug-and-replug your phones in.  The supervisor noted that, well, the quality of call center people in the technical industry these days…

ANYway, after telling him for my great-great love when I did talk to the techs and how I didn’t understand how Verizon could tell me it could be up to 7 days for someone to even look at the problem, he said I should see a dig crew out on Monday, presuming Miss Utility can get out here and mark the other lines (cable, electrical).

1) The copper is dead between my house and the distribution point, there are no alternatives, Verizon is going to have to dig and [...]]]>

At 11:40 AM, a Verizon supervisor — the second tier guys who actually know what the f*** is going on — called me back and clarified the status of the phone repair–

1) The copper is dead between my house and the distribution point, there are no alternatives, Verizon is going to have to dig and put in new copper.

2) This process may take up to 7 days (worst case), since it is now a weekend, Miss Utility has to be called to mark the lines and then Verizon’s contractor has to come out to dig-dig-dig… *sigh*

3) “Bob” the supervisor noted that if the first-line person who had taken the call had scrolled down the record a bit more, she should have seen that A) Phone line was dead, Jim and B) There was another work order generated for replacing the copper from this morning’s tech assessment.  So, she should have not told me that I had service restored and go through the rote ritual of “unplug the phones, wait 5 minutes, try again, that doesn’t work, call back.”

The supervisor — who I bet installed his share of network when he was younger — did not think kindly of the first line response person. Ya gotta love a guy who doesn’t sugar coat things

*sigh*

The moral of this story should NOT be “I hate Verizon.”   I love the line guys and techs who don’t try to B.S. me, they just tell me what’s going on, like the guy yesterday up from Richmond working through the backlog of repairs.  These are people who care about the customer and have pride in their work and they know that they can make a person’s day because they’ve dealt with some of the back office crap and it doesn’t make them any happier.

I really wish Ivan and the rest of the Verizon senior leadership would stop and take a moment to reassess and repair Verizon’s customer service organization on the landline side.

P.S. Shoutout to Andy Abramson — happy to make you smile!

Under the new number porting rule, most service providers — landline, wireless and “certain VoIP” ones — will require the ability [...]]]>

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved rules to speed up number porting and to require failing VoIP providers to give “reasonable notice” to customers and regulators before they shut down.  Verrry interesting.

Under the new number porting rule, most service providers — landline, wireless and “certain VoIP” ones — will require the ability to switch customer phone numbers to another provider within one business day. Currently, providers have slack time of up to four days. NANC (North American Numbering Council) is expected to provide its input on the rule with 90 days. After NANC’s report is in, larger carriers will have 9 months to comply while smaller ones will get up to 15 months.

Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps noted that the wireless industry — ok, the guys with the most shiny new infrastructure — have adopted a standard 2.5 hour porting interval for wireless-to-wireless porting, other service providers haven’t adopted a voluntary standard for wireline-to-wireless or intermodal ports.

Meanwhile, the FCC and other were invoking the ghost of SunRocket, which abruptly closed its doors in 2007, in approving a rule to require failing VoIP providers to give “reasonable notice” to customers; how long exactly wasn’t defined by the commission.   The FCC believes the new rule will give customers a “reasonable opportunity” to switch providers if their existing VoIP service is going to shut down.  Faster number porting should also help migrate customers from failing service providers.

FCC commissioners might have also been inspired by the more recent cratering of SkyWi in New Mexico — its initial failure to pay its bills left thousands of business and commercial customers without phone service when Qwest shut down SkyWi’s long-haul and local circuits.

Original Source: PC Magazine.