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Checked? Try the collections.
(Image: Verizon)
Today, we disappear into the heart, soul and mind of someone who had a little mishap with Verizon.
No, he is surely not the first, nor the last.
He is also not the first or the last to have had a similar setback with one of the other telephone operators.
I do think, however, that Kevin’s solution to his customer service problem was significantly smarter than anything most could create.
Kevin is a longtime friend. A very intelligent friend, deeply nerdy, and occasionally with gregarious opinions.
He was going on vacation and had heard that AT & T’s signal was weak at his remote east coast destination. He had to make sure he had Wi-Fi because he was having an important meeting with some extremely famous people. So he bought the most advanced Verizon jetpack and disappeared on his travels.
Sadly, the jetpack didn’t work right before its big reunion began. But Kevin tried to be optimistic.
Upon his return, he received an email from Verizon. He told her to sign up for My Verizon in order to see her bills. He said that to take advantage of paperless billing, he must be registered.
“Signing up is quick and easy,” the email said. But when he clicked “Join Now”, nothing happened.
Let Kevin pick up on the story, “So I called Verizon customer service and couldn’t speak to anyone because I didn’t have a Verizon phone account.”
It’s likely his Jetpack came with a phone number, but Kevin wasn’t aware of it.
“I thought all I would need was my social security number, my credit card, my address and all that,” he told me.
So he was a little frustrated.
“So I tried to use the chat,” he said. “And I met five people who didn’t seem to be helpful.”
“Why didn’t they seem useful? ” I asked.
“They said I needed the account number and the location number,” he explained. “That’s when I explained I didn’t have them and repeated that I went to see them to try and register my damn device.”
To be clear, Kevin may have made a mistake here and knows it. He hadn’t been informed enough to write down the phone number attached to the Jetpack. One would think, however, that offering a few personal details would have kicked off the process.
The hotline, he said, made the sales and had only one recommendation: to call customer service. So over there went Kevin.
It is currently true that many companies have long wait times for customer service and often blame COVID-19 for it. Rather than, say, a lack of customer service employees.
When Kevin called customer service he said he was on hold for over an hour.
It was then that he had an idea. It turned out to be the kind of smart idea that businesses hope they don’t have.
“I called the collections,” he told me.
“What did you do ?”
“The collections were a lot more responsive than the customer service,” he said. “I went to see them and even though I wasn’t in the collection, I knew someone would answer the phone.”
“How can you be so sure? I was wondering.
“They have people waiting to get money,” he said, quite pleased with himself.
“But didn’t they send you straight to customer service?” “
“No, they were all too happy to register my device,” Kevin said. “They were just disappointed that the money wasn’t overdue.”
There is a certain poetry in the idea that the people who actually provided Kevin with great customer service were the same people who are there to try to squeeze money out of him, if he ever was slow to pay.
Could it be that they are working in collections because they have too much charm? And how come collections can register their device when chat line vendors can’t?
Of course, that could have happened with any carrier and with a number of other service companies. It’s just Verizon.
Then again, over the past year or so, I have heard from many current and former Verizon customer service employees who are not entirely happy with the way things are going in the company. Those who work in the stores have told me they think Verizon is trying to move all customer service online. I wonder how it will be.
Ultimately, I marvel at Kevin’s instinct that, if customer service is slow – or even fully AWOL – there are always collections that go off the hook.
I wonder if the collection staff gets a bonus for performing customer service duties.
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