I have a cool new phone. The HTC Incredible, it’s soooo much better than my Blackberry Storm. I’m plugged in too, a regular SocMed Jockey, so I should/could be a consumer advocate sharing my happy experience but I can’t do that, because I’m really just a hostage.
A little background
I’ve been ready to throw my phone out a window for months. I’ve been considering jumping to AT&T to get an iPhone but I’ve been with Verizon a long time. All of my daughter’s friends are on Verizon that’s why we switched from T-Mobile in the first place. Besides Verizon has better coverage than AT&T for some of the places I go. So I was fairly committed to staying with them and holding out for the Nexus One but then the HTC Incredible came along. It was being released earlier and it was reviewed to be on par or better than the Nexus.
Here’s the sitch:
The day that Verizon Wireless released the HTC Incredible I actually lost my Blackberry, so I went to the Verizon store on South Willow Street (not “my store”). I asked if they had the Incredible in stock and the young man confirmed. The Androids had landed, yes! Story should end here. I buy a phone, happy-o but it doesn’t.
A paraphrase of my experience.
Verizon Rep: Hey you can get this for less if you wait till May 3 when you’re up for an early upgrade option (I would’ve paid full price if he hadn’t gone there).
Me: umm that’s in like four days.
Verizon Rep: Yes, you’ll have to come back.
Me: No. You wont have these in four days and I’ve lost my phone I need one today. Can’t you fix it, I mean what’s four days to Verizon?
Verizon Rep: No. I can’t do anything you’ll have to come back May 3
Me: Are you serious? I’m a customer for “x” $ month and “y” number of years with a VIP rating and you’re not going to sell me the phone today?
Verizon Rep: No. I can’t do anything you’ll have to come back May 3
Me: I’m getting a phone today, it doesn’t have to be here. You don’t want to reconsider or talk to a manager or anything? You’re going to let me walk away from Verizon like this today.
Verizon Rep: Yes.
So I go over to Five Guys to have a burger with my kido and I’m fuming. Ready to go to AT&T after lunch and tell Verizon to go to hell. I think I actually Tweeted something about their sucktasticness. My daughter keeps feeding me french fries and reminds me that every time we do anything with Verizon at a store other than “our store” we wind up being upset. She’s right. Last May when we bought the Blackberry for me and her an LG Dare we’d gone through a similar “I don’t have a brain in my head” moment with a Verizon Rep down in Merrimack. Whenever we went to “our store” they were brilliant. So after lunch I resolve to finish my errands and then try again to get my new phone at “my Verizon store”.
At my store I explain my situation to the rep who is very sympathetic and explains to me that I need to call customer service and make my case with them. His hands are tied and he wishes he could do more right now but that customer service over the phone has powers that the he did not. He’s frustrated by it as he explains to me the hoops we have to jump through but he’s confident things will be resolved to my satisfaction. I think to myself “how ridiculous!” but ok, I call.
I’m on the phone with a young lady from customer service and she’s giving me the same “you’ll have to wait four days story”. I make it clear that I am not waiting four days, if they can’t figure out that my tenure as a customer is of greater value than the next fours days then I am taking my business elsewhere. After placing me on hold she returns, like a miracle, she’s enthusiastic and celebrating! I should be so happy with her because she found a loop hole and can make the four day thingy go away 
… I’m not impressed but whatever I need my phone.
So she blathers on and on about the notations she’s making in the account and all the Verizon jargon about “upgrade” vs “early upgrade” vs “priority upgrade” and a bunch of other crap. I explain to her that while she is very impressed with all the jargon they have created to run their business on the inside, people like me on the outside don’t give a flying hoot what they call it. It’s all irrelevant to the customer. We want to buy a phone, or a service plan, and that’s it. We don’t want to have to learn a different language to try and find out if we are getting screwed out of a better offering by the same vendor. We want you to make it simple and to do the right thing. We want to be able to trust you.
Unfortunately I’ve been on the phone in the store for the last hour and twenty minutes (yes that’s right!) and the rep in the store tells me closest place to get my phone now is the Nashua store which closes at 9:00. If chatterbox can finish updating the notes on my account and we verify them, then I could maybe make it in time to get my phone. My rep calls the Nashua store and explains the circumstances ensures they see what we see etc. and lets them know I’m on my way. My boyfriend has been with me this whole time because we had been on our way out to dinner and this was to have been a quick stop along the way (oops!). He graciously agrees to play my little reindeer game and we head to Nashua to get my phone. Story should end here. I buy a phone, happy-o ……. but it doesn’t.
I get to the Nashua store and to make a long ugly story short (too late?) the store manager refuses to sell me the phone. He says the “code” is not one his store can acknowledge, no amount of talk can change it, he can’t sell me the phone.
Next day, I’m back on the phone with customer service. Now I’m ripped. I tell her that I’m leaving and they are forgiving me the $240.00 cancellation fee as my departure is due to their failure to provide adequate customer service. I’m all done. The rep explains that I shouldn’t be mad at her Verizon, because the Nashua store isn’t a corporate store.
Suddenly I begin to understand my various experiences with Verizon. See they want you to think they are one big brand, so you’ll trust this one big every-where-all-at-once-wireless-giant, only they’re not. They can not even make their non-corp stores sell a phone to someone. It’s up to each store manager’s discretion. That hit me like brick. So the store manager could have served me but he chose not to so he could sell his phone at a full price.
Wow. I asked the rep on the phone how were we, the customers, supposed to know which was which? How did we get to decide who we want to do business with? She didn’t answer. In the end, two and a half days after I tried to buy it, I got my phone. But I’ve lost all respect for them. I’m a hostage, I have no loyalty or trust in them anymore. The thing with hostages is the moment the right opportunity to escape comes along, they’re out of there. When was the last time you asked your customers why they do business with you?
KTF
-KSL
P.S. As if they had any redeeming qualities.
