Don’t you love Customer Service sometimes? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Arnie starts out over a month ago signing up for a phone that would work in Europe. Our Droids do not.
At that point, Verizon Customer Service is, in fact, very nice and very helpful. They say they do not have a Droid for Europe, but they can offer us a Blackberry. Arnie makes sure to ask if we will have our Contacts and Calendar on the loaner Blackberry. The very nice Customer Service person assures him this will not be a problem. Little did she know…
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when we realize that the phone will be delivered with barely enough time to set it up. Call to Customer Service. No problem upping the delivery date to a few days earlier. Thank god, considering what happened. So far, A+ for Customer Satisfaction.
Since the phone arrives in time for the weekend, I think it best to start early to try and set it up. I call Verizon Customer Service to see what I need to do to prepare for the transfer. Simple; just make sure everything is up to date and export it to a CSV file. OK, that sounds reasonable and something I have done often over the years.
“What about my calendar?”
“When you call back, we’ll take care of that, too.”
Everything is ready, and I call Verizon to make sure I’ve done everything properly and in the right order. Blackberries are a mystery to me. Intuitive, they are not. Who would think to turn ON a phone using the red HANG-UP botton? That’s not Verizon’s fault, just an interesting aside.
The above with the assorted phone calls takes about an hour and a half of my time. Ugh, but that’s the way things go sometimes.
Now, armed with my Contacts file which is on Outlook (I don’t like to use Google because of their practice of gathering information), we try to import it to the online, Verizon backup. It duplicates many of my contacts, so I spend hours trying to straighten that mess out. So much for backup!
After being on the phone for over two hours, my portable phone dies. Fortunately, the nice gal calls me back, and we continue, she periodically checking with her supervisor. Still no success, and no success, and no success. Eventually, we succeed with the Contacts. Easy, it ain’t!
We then go to activate the overseas Blackberry. It will not activate. Nada, rien, ZIP! Do not pass GO! Sorry, no $200.
I am actually very computer savvy. Am I an expert? No, but I do know about CTRL-ALT-DEL, F5, and CTRL-R, among many other commands that those of us who have been using computers since the 80s take for granted.
Finally, after over three hours, Verizon passes me on up the line. The nice gentleman is able to get our overseas loaner activated. He is grateful for my knowledge of computers, as it makes everything go so much faster, a relative term for me at this point.
It turns out that while I had turned off my Droid, I needed to remove the battery in order to make sure that there were no residual signals going out. Why didn’t they try that in the beginning? Arghhh!
The last gentleman also says he doesn’t understand why Verizon gave us a Blackberry when they have overseas Droids. He knows that Droids and Blackberries don’t play nicely with each other. Why were we told otherwise?
He is very sympathetic to all the wasted time spent and says, without my asking, that he is documenting everything so that I can deal more effectively with Verizon. From his point of view, the whole process should have never taken so long. After all, in pretty short order, he helped me get everything except for the calendar to work. And we now know about the calendar!
I am hearing conflicting information from the earlier Verizon Customer Service people and the nice gentleman. It is the gentleman’s comments that ring true.
By the time everything is in working order and functional, I have put over five hours into the process. For my calendar? Guess what? I am also bringing my Droid overseas! Go figure.
Thank you, Verizon Customer Service, for telling us that at the onset.
We are now in IAD in DC in the lounge waiting for our overseas flight. On the way to the lounge, Arnie sees a Verizon global ad touting the Droid in Spain and Europe. Anyone in the art business knows it takes more than a few weeks to put an ad together, which means that Verizon knew it was going to have the new Droid that would work where we were going. Did they let us know? Of course not.
If I had a problem with high blood pressure, it would have gone through the roof. Almost five wasted hours.
So, I call dear Customer Service at Verizon, ask immediately and very politely to be passed up to a supervisor. When asked for the reason why, I simple say, “Bad service. That should grab their attention,” and laugh. The Customer Service gal laughs, too.
After relating my frustrating saga to the supervisor, she says, “For your time and inconvenience, I can offer you the data plan for free.”
“What is that worth,” I ask?
“$34.99.”
Even pitifully low editorial rates are far more than that. She would not understand that, so I asked her if she worked five hours if she would be paid only $34.99.
Customer Service people don’t like questions like that, as they are embarrassing and show how little they value the customer’s time.
She repeats what she obviously feels is a generous offer, “For your time and inconvenience, I can offer you the data plan for free,” as though I had not heard her before.
Arnie and I confer. Can she allow us to upgrade to the new Droid? No, we cannot do that until next July, after our next overseas tips, but “For your time and inconvenience …”
Could she then reduce the minutes rate overseas? No, she could not do that, but “For your time and inconvenience …”
So, why am I writing this? To warn anyone who has Verizon service to make sure that you will not be saddled with five hours of your time getting your loaner phone ready for International use. Sure, everyone was polite at Verizon, but they could not help until the final gentleman who is my hero.
Be sure to get the same type of phone you have in the US if you want to bring everything with you.
And as to Verizon, well, you can guess just what I think of the overall effectiveness of their Customer Service, the last gentleman excepted, of course.
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Our Droid worked in the Cabri during our FEb Trip.
Tony,
That’s great! The new droids do, but ours is 3G and not set up for international travel. We wish that Verizon had offered us the Droid once they had them, instead of sticking with the Blackberry that doesn’t play nicely with Droid anything!
Take care, and thanks for writing.
TBC