Verizon Wireless, where did we go wrong?
A little random fact about myself, I am a strong believer and a big fan of loyalty. I believe loyalty plays an important part in my life each and everyday. I am loyal to my wife, my friends, my coworkers, my clients and yes I am loyal to specific companies. I believe that when a company delivers an exceptional product or service, they deserve my loyalty. That loyalty consists of me continuing to work with them year after year and recommend them to my friends and peers. This kind of customer evangelism is even more important today as the web has made the world so much smaller and allowed users to communicate and share their opinions effortlessly.
In marketing, there is nothing so sweet than a customer evangalist. This person has absolutely no hidden agenda. All they want to do is freely share their happiness with a company or product. They do this because they believe in it strongly and want others to feel as good as they do. And when a customer evangelist has a poor experience with the company they have spent years promoting and recommending, it can be a blow to the system.
This is where I am at the moment. I sit here perplexed with what has happened with Verizon Wireless and myself over the last 6 months. I have been a Verizon customer for more than 10 years. In those ten years, I have lived in 5 different states and with each move, my trusted Verizon phone and service came with me. I am also an early adopter. When the new hot tech phone comes out, I am usually there to buy one. This is exactly what happened months ago when Verizon released the Blackberry Storm. The first week it came out, I went and purchased two of them for my wife and I.
Now I am not going to go into detail about all the problems that the Storm has had. Let’s just say that if you do a search on Google for “Blackberry Storm Sucks“, there are 376,000 web pages willing to go into more detail. Unfortunately, I also had my problems with the Storm which forced me to speak with Verizon’s customer service more than a dozen times. They tried to fix things, but bottom line is Verizon and Blackberry put out a product that was not ready to be released. It was a half baked product that was rushed to market and both Verizon and Blackberry should be held accountable.
I use my phone for work. The Storm just does not allow me to do everything i need to do in the time I need to get it done. Fast foward to this week when Verizon releases the new Blackberry Tour. I called Verizon and they proceeded to tell me that since I signed a new contract when I bought my Storm, I am not eligible for the $199 deal they were offering on the Tour. I would have to pay more than $300!
To be honest after all the problems I have had, I believe that Verizon should just give me the Tour for free and beg for my forgiveness. Though I doubt that is going to happen. But I actually thought they might give me the same deal they are offering to new customers since I have been paying customer for more than a decade?
I have reached the point where this is really not about the money. It is now the principle. Doesn’t loyalty work both ways? Haven’t I built up enough loyalty with Verizon to deserve to be treated better or am I being totally naive? Am I asking too much? And if I am asking too much, what do I do now? I believe that the only logical next step is for my wife and I to take our business elsewhere. Though will I get the exact same poor service with AT&T?
I am working with marketing in Denmark and is searching for inspiration in the digital world. Thanks for inspiration
“For instance, he increased traffic to verizonwireless.com by tenfold with an online media buy and a viral marketing campaign.”
did you ever mention that?
go for the iphone, much more hip to admit problems with.
Bobby,
I appreciate you looking up my bio, but I don’t really see any correlation to work I did for Verizon more than a decade ago and my issues I have with their service. But once again thanks for looking up my bio. Also, I really am not that interested in being “hip”, but I have no doubt it is very important to you. Go nutty with your bad self.
Had the same problem with Verizon when I bought my Storm. I gave it a while to grow on me, but it never did (could never get used to the clickable screen and the horrendously slow OS). Thought I could get a different type of BB through Verizon and they said, “Sure…for the retail price of the phone.” “How much is that?” I asked. “$499″ they said. “WHAT?!?”
Solution: got an iPhone from AT&T and sold my BB Storm to a site called Gazelle.com that deals in used electronics. They gave me $140 for it, enough to recoup the cost of breaking the Verizon contract. You may want to consider doing something like that.
Pete,
Thanks so much for your Gazelle recommendation. I will try them out. Best.
ditto on the Verizon customer service issues. Where is the love for loyalty. We are on the hook for some much in monthly charges, if I were Verizon I’d make sure my customer had a functioning device they would be VERY happy with and keep all of us texting/talking addicts hooked on their line. We’ve had a recurring nightmare of customer service re: a Samsung saga that has been “replaced” 3 times by mail with reconditioned equally crappy Samsung sagas from Verizon. If they would just let me switch to a Blackberry I’d stay, but the nimrods on the customer phone lines can’t see the big picture. So I’m waiting until Jan when one of our family’s four verizon phone contracts is up and moving over to the I-Phone and AT&T. And at this point, it’s really become about the principle of them treating long term loyal customers like crap.