Failed Connection: 8 Signs Verizon Doesn't Prioritize Customer Satisfaction

Newsflash to customer service teams: when something goes wrong, I do not necessarily need you to apologize. I definitely do not need you to recap what went wrong.

I simply need you to make it right.

Somehow unbeknownst to far too many businesses, customer service is a game of action rather than words. What an agent says—and how he says it—might affect the tone of the call, but it is what he does that determines whether or not the brand wins or loses my trust and satisfaction.

As long as they remain ignorant to that concept, businesses—intentionally or not—are declaring that the customer satisfaction does not rank as a top priority.

In failing to deliver a replacement Samsung Galaxy S4 in a timely, convenient, pleasant fashion, Verizon Wireless this week again exposed itself as one such business. While I am thrilled that the issue has officially been resolved, I am unable to shake the disastrous encounters that preceded the resolution.

(The story in a nutshell: Last Saturday, my phone would turn off in the middle of a charge. I would have to repeatedly pop the battery in and out and reboot to get the phone to stay on, at which point, it was almost depleted of its battery life. A Verizon in-store representative promised to send me a new phone and battery by Tuesday. It did not arrive Tuesday, and Verizon refused to remedy the situation. When I finally got the package Wednesday, I noticed it did not include the battery. Verizon again refused to remedy. Luckily, the new phone seems to be working with the old battery)

To the credit of the company and its representatives, it was not the only party to blame. It did not manufacture the defective Samsung phone that required me to seek support in the first place. It did not tell shipping partner FedEx to exercise incompetency in delivering the replacement product.

It was, however, the only party that could claim me as a regular, active customer. It was also the only party capable of resolving the situation.

And it is within the context of those realities that Verizon’s failure was so resonant.

Here are eight elements that prove customer satisfaction is not Verizon’s top priority.

1) REFUSAL TO THINK LIKE A CUSTOMER

One would think a business that markets the immense, everyday value of mobile devices—let alone one that provides monthly, "always on" cellular service—would understand the importance customers place on their phones. One would be wrong.

At every turn of my experience, Verizon made it clear that it did not understand the urgency of replacing the phone that it outright confirmed was defective due to a power issue. It was not positioned to offer a replacement—or even actual technical support--at the retail location. When the shipment failed to arrive on its scheduled delivery date, it did not understand why asking me to wait at least another day—and go out of my way to retrieve the device from a shipping facility—was problematic. When I discovered that Verizon forgot to include the promised battery in the shipment, the company did not experience any motivation to urgently provide one.

If a business has a prayer of satisfying customers, it must understand how those customers actually feel and what those customers actually want. When it comes to customer service, the "Golden Rule" is not "treat others how you would like to be treated." It is "treat others how they would like to be treated."

2) WILLINGNESS TO IGNORE THE CUSTOMER

Forget anticipating a customer’s needs—Verizon could not even meet those needs when told, point blank, what it needed to do. After it became clear that I was not going to receive the replacement phone as scheduled, I provided a simple solution. I could visit the local retail store and pick up one of the new versions of the phone it had in stock. Instead of thanking me for doing the job for them, the members of Verizon’s customer service team refused to comply. They ignored me.

Worse, Verizon would not even communicate with me the way I requested. The very reason I was interacting with support was that my phone would randomly turn itself off and require multiple re-starts to return to a functional state. The longer the call went, the greater the likelihood that my phone would click off and dismiss the call. One would think Verizon would respond by minimizing hold times, transfers and getting to the point. One would be wrong.

The tedious interactions, which involved agents dancing around the issue rather than focusing on solving the problem, put the phone in a state of jeopardy. And during one of the many holds I was forced to endure, the call did click off, thus ruining hours of hard work.

3) LACK OF KNOWLEDGE

Clearly devoid of any ability to actually support customers and their devices, Verizon’s in-store representative was able to conclude that there was something wrong with either my phone or my battery. Since he had replacements for neither on hand, his only option was to order the products from Verizon. And since he was already asking me to wait longer than should be required, he felt the wise thing to do would be to send replacements for both items—the phone and the battery—to assure I would have what I needed to avoid another support visit.

He, of course, forgot—or did not know—to brief me on two important details:

• Verizon apparently does not send replacement batteries
• VVerizon uses FedEx to ship replacements

The first bullet, which I soon learned was a fact unbeknownst to many representatives at corporate headquarters as well, was a tragic misfire, since it represented a promise the brand absolutely could not keep. Particularly funny is that the in-store representative’s first recommendation was simply to order a replacement battery. If Verizon truly does not replace those, I would have received nothing.

As anyone who lives in a big city will tell you, revealing the second bullet point at the time of support is absolutely essential. Unlike providers like UPS and DHL, FedEx seems unwilling to leave packages in apartment lobbies (which is the only way those who work during business hours can get them). It also has a nasty tendency to route packages to a distant shipping facility rather than to the location nearest my apartment.

If I had known Verizon used FedEx going in, I would have provide the representative with a different shipping address/option. The representative’s failure to share that knowledge prematurely doomed the experience to failure; as expected, when I returned to my apartment Tuesday, I saw the dreaded "we missed you" note from FedEx.

Each of the agents with whom I connected during the support process seemed to share conflicting information about Verizon’s support protocol. That weakness in the knowledgebase is simply unacceptable.

4) LACK OF AN OMNI-CHANNEL SUPPORT EXPERIENCE

Omni-channel customer service is not about maintaining a presence in all conceivable interaction channels. It is about being able to provide the service customers demand on the terms customers prefer. Verizon is not interested in doing that.

Upon discovering that my phone, which was still under Verizon’s warranty, seemed to have a power short, I walked to the nearby Verizon brick-and-mortar location for assistance.

There was no assistance to be found. Beyond confirming he witnessed the issue, the Verizon support representative offered nothing remotely resembling the support I needed.

He could not properly diagnose the problem. He could not fix the problem. Worse, he was apparently unable to provide me with a replacement battery or device (though he could not articulate why, he noted that Verizon, mind-bogglingly, no longer stocks replacement devices at its locations). His only option was to order a replacement phone and battery; the kit, to be sent my apartment, was to arrive three days later (Tuesday).

When the phone and battery did not arrive as planned on Tuesday, I, irate about being forced to go another day without access to the service for which I was still paying, initially attempted to connect to Verizon customer service via live chat. I could not due to the fact that the system did not recognize my computer and would not even let me enter the password without answering a security question I did not know. Beyond the ridiculousness of this particular situation – I knew my password and am a manager on the family plan account – the chat barrier reflects the channel’s futility for even those service requests that seem tailormade for online chat.

What if, for instance, I needed assistance logging in to my web account?

5) LACK OF CROSS-CHANNEL (AND EVEN INTRA-CHANNEL) CONSISTENCY

While customers might have channel preferences, they do not think of their issues in terms of channel. They simply focus on the nature of the issue and the nature of the needed resolution. No matter the channel they initially pick—or no matter how many times they shift between different channels—they should never be asked to compromise the efficacy and efficiency of that fundamental experience.

Lacking harmony within a single channel—let alone across different ones—it was clear creating a consistent experience is not a priority for Verizon.

Even though I received in-store "support"—and even ordered my replacement—without any sort of account password or the account owner’s social security number, Verizon’s call center representative refused to even acknowledge the issue until I provided one of them. That I had an order form confirming the shipment did not matter. That this issue had nothing to do with private account details did not matter. That I am listed as a formal account manager did not matter.

In fact, that I had the correct password did not matter. Whether due to systems that were out of sync or the agent’s inability to spell, she could not get the password I provided—one I have confirmed was correct—to work.

Since I was requesting support for a request I made in the store, I should not have been required to provide information I did not need in the store. The experience is supposed to be unified.

Granted, I recognize many will sympathize with Verizon on this point – some like the extra layer of security. Fair enough. But try justifying this one: agents within the same channel were not even on the same page.

Demanding the account holder’s SSN, the agent gave me a five minute window to acquire it. At that point, she would call me back to resolve my issue.

I quickly obtained the SSN. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then fifteen. Then twenty. Still no callback. Furious, I had no choice but to call the main support line and again wait on a ten minute hold. Just as the new agent picked up, I noticed a pair of missed calls coming from the original agent. In addition to lying about the callback time, the original agent evidently could not see that I was already connected to her call center.

Worse, the new agent had no documentation of my previous interaction.

6) OPEN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT INSULAR BUSINESS NEEDS > CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Allow me to momentarily take back my comment that words are meaningless in the customer experience.

The words provided by various members of the Verizon support team absolutely matter because they reflect on the business’ disinterest in doing what is best for the customer.

Throughout the extensive conversations, numerous representatives and supervisors confirmed that "business" comes first.

After asking why retail stores no longer stock replacement items, a Verizon representative provided a business reason: unable to properly diagnose phones, in-store representatives were far too lenient when issuing replacements – which was creating an unnecessary cost for the business. That these agents were satisfying customers evidently did not matter.

After asking why, given Verizon’s failure to get me the replacement in the promised timeframe, I could not go to the local retail location and pick up a new phone (which was in stock) as a replacement, I was told that it would help me but hurt Verizon. That, somehow, was worse than the status quo, in which Verizon was hurting itself by virtue of hurting its customer.

After asking why I should not be upset about Verizon’s failure to include a replacement battery even though its own agent felt a battery issue was to blame (and even though multiple agents confirmed I was to receive a battery), I was told Verizon would rather I try the replacement phone first. If I needed a battery, I could always order one from Verizon. That Verizon was asking me to do diagnostics and to potentially go another week without a phone was apparently acceptable.

If an agent cannot articulate how a policy or decision benefits the customer, it needs to find a new policy. The customer service department’s only job is to satisfy customers.

7) FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THAT AGENTS ARE THE BUSINESS

Throughout my struggle, it became clear that Verizon does not understand that agents represent the voice of the business.

Did the in-store representative speak incompetently and out of turn? Almost definitely. Does that mean Verizon and its other support agents should feel no obligation to deliver what he promised? Absolutely not. It is not the customer’s job to assume certain agents are wrong. It is the business’ job to stand behind what its agents say even when it is wrong.

In a later interaction, a Verizon call center "supervisor" explained that he would "lose his job" if he attempted to truly resolve my issue. He, evidently, was not informed that his job is the same as Verizon’s job – to keep customers satisfied.

Proven he is not an empowered voice of the brand, a different supervisor claimed that he has no influence over Verizon policy. If they have rules regarding the support process, he must follow them, even if it means upsetting a customer.

8) FAILURE TO MAKE RESOLUTION A PRIORITY

Throughout my interactions with Verizon, I heard many excuses. I heard many justifications. I even heard many apologies.

What I consistently failed to hear, however, was Verizon’s plan for remedying my situation.

Defying the laws of logic, the Verizon representatives were repeatedly willing to acknowledge a problem occurred but systematically unwilling to do anything about it. How is that possible?

My recommended solutions might have been unworkable—and there is no reason to accept that they were—but that does not mean a solution is not obligatory.

"You will not receive your phone tonight," one supervisor’s outright declaration, is tantamount to saying, "We are not interested in satisfying our customers. We are not interested in providing customer service."

No brand would put the latter quote on its literature. It therefore has no business delivering the former.