Posts Categorized Customer Service

Verizon Still Doesn’t Understand Concept Of Fire

In Business, Customer Service on Aug-2-2008 with
no comments

Sometimes I am just stunned by stuff like this, but I guess I shouldn’t since customer support has reached an all-time low in this country:

My in-laws lost their house to a fire in January. Rebuilding went down to the bricks in some places, and wall studs in others. Complete loss, complete rebuild.

When they tried to move their phone number to their temporary apartment abode during home reconstruction, Verizon wouldn’t do it. This was a Verizon land line they’d had for maybe 25 years or so in two different homes. The Verizon rep told them they only thing they could do was forward the old number to the new number.

OK, said my father-in-law, accepting that he’d have to pay for two phone lines for the duration. Forward that number.

We can’t do it, said the Verizon reps, only you can do it. Get this: they were told to call from their old phone to request the forwarding service. Yes, the phone in a house that burned down. Yes, calling on phones that had turned into lumps of melted plastic with metal bits sticking out.

I mean is it any wonder that people are running away from phone companies as fast as they can and going to cell phones for home use and/or VOIP.

Verizon Still Doesn’t Understand Concept Of Fire

In Business, Customer Service on Aug-2-2008 with
no comments

Sometimes I am just stunned by stuff like this, but I guess I shouldn’t since customer support has reached an all-time low in this country:

My in-laws lost their house to a fire in January. Rebuilding went down to the bricks in some places, and wall studs in others. Complete loss, complete rebuild.

When they tried to move their phone number to their temporary apartment abode during home reconstruction, Verizon wouldn’t do it. This was a Verizon land line they’d had for maybe 25 years or so in two different homes. The Verizon rep told them they only thing they could do was forward the old number to the new number.

OK, said my father-in-law, accepting that he’d have to pay for two phone lines for the duration. Forward that number.

We can’t do it, said the Verizon reps, only you can do it. Get this: they were told to call from their old phone to request the forwarding service. Yes, the phone in a house that burned down. Yes, calling on phones that had turned into lumps of melted plastic with metal bits sticking out.

I mean is it any wonder that people are running away from phone companies as fast as they can and going to cell phones for home use and/or VOIP.

Hilarious Tech Support Transcripts

In Customer Service on Mar-8-2008 with
no comments

New York Times tech writer David Pogue recently received a “Best Of” CD from a support call center with some of their funniest calls and has been nice enough to share a few of them with his readers.

On one call, the caller seemed to be taking an inordinately long time to complete each instruction she was given.

Agent: Ma’am, I can’t help noticing that every time I give you an instruction, it takes a really long time before you get back to me. Is your computer that slow?

Caller: Oh, no, it’s just the stupid, stupid design of this computer. Every time I want to click something, I have to unplug the keyboard to plug in the mouse. And then every time I want to use the keyboard again, I have to unplug the mouse. Because there’s only one jack.

Agent: Ma’am, you do realize that there’s a jack on the keyboard itself? You’re supposed to plug the mouse into the keyboard, and the keyboard into the computer.

Caller: Are YOU KIDDING ME!? Oh, wait a minute—yes, I see it now! Oh, holy cow. That’s going to be so much easier!

Agent: Just out of curiosity, how long have you been using your computer that way?

Caller: Six weeks!