Verizon Customer Service- The "only" Problem
Q: I've been with T-mobile, AT&T and Verizon. All have had friendly and courteous customer service agents with varying degrees of technical knowledge. Verizon has the best customer service that I have experienced between them. The one flaw I detect, which can also be said of many other large companies, is that there is no ability to escalate problems. I mean, when you call, if there is anything in the power of the CS agent you speak with, they will do it, in fact they will in my experience go the extra mile for you. What they seem unable to do is pass along problems that they cannot solve individually to some escalation point. Specific examples include addressing the fact that Verizon users cannot send or receive SMS messages when roaming on Sprint (preferred provider). "Everyone" knows this is the case, but no one seems to be concerned about it, nor are there any efforts to remediate the situation. Here in Oregon, AT&T phones can send and receive text most everywhere they have service including when roaming. In fact, back when US Cellular was preferred in Oregon (before AC) we could do text messaging using their service. An additonal example would be the fact that no customer in Oregon will receive voicemail indication when roaming on Sprint. It's been this way since Sprint was added as preffered provider in the PRL, yet there is no way to communicate this problem to anyone within Verizon and get an answer. You can call customer service, but once again, if it is something the individual on the line cannot solve, no followthrough will occur. I understand why this happens-- they can't have the average moron calling engineers directly or wasting managements time, but I find these barriers inpenetrable. Any adiveces for me ?
A: I disagree. I've seen 'poor service areas' escalated. The techs would actually figure out if there is supposed to be a coverage in the area and if not see if there is a tower scheduled to go in and approxmiately when. Not sure why your problems aren't getting escalated because they do a real good job following up and seem to notify within 24 hours.