I'm on the phone with Verizon customer service

"Jcarr" (jcarr)
02/12/2016 at 13:17 • Filed to: None

Current mood:

DISCUSSION (14)

Birddog > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 13:28

Your call is very important to us. Please continue to hold for the next available representative.

EL_ULY > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 13:29

so is my boss. he wants to kill the world right now lols!

Jcarr > Birddog
02/12/2016 at 13:30

I worked for a Verizon corporate store from 2006-2008. The still use the same hold music.

I’m having Nam-level flashbacks.

Jcarr > EL_ULY
02/12/2016 at 13:30

While searching for these gifs, I found another that I’m going to use for a post in a little bit. I think you’ll like it.

davedave1111 > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 13:35

I was checking Oppo while on the phone to John Lewis customer services as they demonstrated that it’s really not that hard to have someone polite and helpful answer the phone, even if they can’t actually help you because the item’s not in stock.

If Verizon are anything like the worst of the shithead customer service departments we have here, the key tactic is instead of arguing with an idiot to ring off and talk to another ‘advisor’ until you get one who’s actually competent and helpful.

McMike > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 13:39

LOL. I am trying to bundle up all my shit and save some $$, and I spend about an hour on the phone with Verizon yesterday. I’m at about $230 for everything now, and after I dropped cable and added Verizon TV?

$230

Remind me again why they want us to bundle this shit up?

She told me I could get a discount for being a new customer, and then I asked her how long I had been a customer. “20 years,” she said. “I know.” I said.

I told her that this is her chance to verbally thank me for being a customer for 20 years if you can’t do it any other way.

Jcarr > McMike
02/12/2016 at 13:43

Part of me pities those minimum-wage folks that read off a script and get mercilessly flogged.

The other part wants to mercilessly flog them.

boxrocket > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 13:52

Better use of your time: Call or go to a T-Mobile store, and port your numbers to them. They’ll even pay up to $350/line to switch.

Verizon seems to be the Comcast of the US wireless industry.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 13:53

I did over a decade in call centers. Fucking never again. Usually it’s not minimum wage. It’s usually about 1$2-15 an hour depending on the call center. Not great, still.

But I won’t hesitate to lose it on someone who is clearly from another country. But if it’s an American I’ll be kinder. Seriously - I saw the CSAT scores in one center tank when they shipped a bunch of the call center jobs to the Philippines. It was cheaper to lease a new building and hire a bunch of people to work at night than it was to keep paying Americans despite the fact that it was a sales center.

Call centers are soul-crushing.

Jcarr > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
02/12/2016 at 13:55

I believe it. It was terrible enough inside the store as a sales person. I can’t imagine having to deal with angry customers all day, every day.

McMike > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 13:57

Yeah, I try not to beat up people on the phone for something that’s out of their control.

I did, however, lose my patience yesterday when I asked how I could itemize my order (DVR options, number of TVs, etc). I didn’t see anywhere on the website to dig down and get a final price. I was on the phone to figure the price out, and asked her at least five times if I could view it on the site.

That’s all I wanted, but she kept asking me to tell her what I wanted so she could give me a quote.

“ I don’t know what I want yet, so I would like to see the itemized pricing. I need to compare things before I make my decision”

After 20 minutes, I discovered that I had to enter the “checkout” portion of my my “cart” to get to the itemized part of the service I was looking for.

I may have been a little rude because I think she ran out of scripted responses.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > Jcarr
02/12/2016 at 14:02

I left Sprint because I was having panic attacks. I would spend 30-40 minutes a day in the quiet room there. Had my roommate pick me up one night. It was terrible. Then my boss (a loud, proud, angry, tiny black woman) would bust into the quiet room where I was trying to keep from hyperventilating and start to scream because I wasn’t on the phones.

This is the same woman who, at the Christmas pot-luck, asked if anyone minded if she started with a prayer, and I, even as a nonbeliever, said “whatever. It doesn’t really hurt anything.”

Then she spent 45 minutes of the hour lunch on a tirade about Jesus. I got up about 20 minutes in, fixed myself a plate, and ate by myself in the corner. The whole team looked at me like I had just eaten a baby or something.

Jcarr > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection
02/12/2016 at 14:04

Sounds like a wonderful environment.

NJAnon > Jcarr
02/13/2016 at 00:29

Jcarr, what are you on hold with them for? It wasn’t something that couldn’t be done on their site?

(Honestly since they went to an automated voice recognizing phone system I don’t bother calling)