Verizon Forgets What Customer Service is All About; Ignores 5 Keys to a Great Experience

When, upon calling into a customer service line, you must pass through an endless gauntlet of unhelpful IVR instructions, you can probably conclude you are not in for the most customer-centric experience of your life.

When, in response to a request, one of the customer service representatives says, “sure, that would help you, but it doesn’t work for us,” you know you are not receiving a customer-centric experience.

Such was the case with Verizon, which in completely dropping the ball during a recent string of interactions revealed the extent to which it does not understand basic customer service principles.

As you approach customer service inquiries, many of which will actually be more demanding and complicated than the one I brought to Verizon, your success hinges on not only understanding those principles but demonstrating an unbreakable commitment to them.

Be a Resource for Customers

Having lost my iPhone this weekend, I was in the unfortunate position of needing to purchase a new phone (and thus use my upgrade) immediately. And though I have been a loyal iPhone user, the technological disparity between phones like the Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 has become too difficult to ignore, and I was strongly leaning towards purchasing the former.

The problem? Without presently possessing my current iPhone, I had no means of formally deactivating the iMessage component of my account. A plethora of Internet reports suggest that when someone switches from iPhone without completing that disassociation, those who had previously been communicating with that person via iMessage lose the ability to contact that person until deleting and recreating his profile.

This problem does not seem to affect everyone, but the complaints were rampant enough to create significant skepticism about the switch. And though some fixes and workarounds are offered across the web (including from Samsung), none is immune from testimonials disputing its efficacy.

Neither wanting to burden close friends with the task of updating my contact information nor wanting to give looser acquaintances an opportunity to cease contact, I had little interest in taking the iMessage risk. If Verizon could not totally eradicate my doubt, I was probably going to stick with an iOS device.

Verizon, unfortunately, had no answers either way. Despite widespread discussion about the issue, the Verizon customer service representative to whom I spoke had no knowledge to impart. His boss was similarly without concrete awareness of the potential snag in switching from iOS to Android.

Worse, instead of figuring out who within Verizon could help me, the representative advised me to bring my issue to the nearby Apple store. Though I could see why Apple would be more educated on the matter (though, in this case, I later found that the “Genius Bar” had no genius to impart), I also recognized that Apple had far less incentive to be helpful. While the spirit of customer-centricity involves satisfying non-customers as well as customers, the reality is that I was trying to leave Apple. If I did, I would no longer be an Apple customer.

I would, however, still be a Verizon customer. So when it comes to determining who should most want to help me and who is most invested in providing the right advice, the answer was obviously Verizon. Given that Verizon wants to build my trust and keep my business, its willingness to shirk a clear customer service duty was nothing if not perplexing.

Offer Meaningful Resolution for Customers

Having had an additional opportunity to play with the Galaxy S4 while in the Verizon store, I was more sure than ever that I wanted to make the switch. Unfortunately, thanks to the personnel’s dearth of information, I was more uncertain than ever that such a switch was feasible.

Assuming that the Verizon representative was upset with his inability to answer a customer’s question, I figured he would be especially driven to find a resolution. As such, I presented an undesirable, yet management, option: I could leave the store with an iPhone 5, deactivate iMessage from my account, and then exchange the phone for a Galaxy S4.

Though that plan, to some extent, mirrors the sleazy schemes of buying a big-screen TV and returning it once the Super Bowl is over or buying a nice dress for a party and then returning it the next day, it was the only resolution on the table. Moreover, to the extent that Verizon gives customers 14 days to return or exchange a phone for any reason and would, in fact, charge me a $35 restocking fee to compensate for the burden of this process, the proposal seemed neither outlandish nor unethical.

Worth noting, of course, is that I was enduring a major time and attention burden to pull this off. I was essentially doing Verizon’s job of resolving a customer issue and Apple’s job of addressing a convoluted product design. Given all that, it seemed like a given that Verizon would be on board with the plan.

It was not. Explaining that it would help me but not Verizon (apparently forgetting that what works for the customer is what works for the business), the representative refused to sell me the iPhone 5 on that ground. Unfortunately, he proposed no other alternative: I could either buy a Galaxy S4 and potentially lose valuable contacts or buy an iPhone 5 and waive my right to a product return.

That mentality is unworkable in the “age of the customer.” I recognize that my ideas will not always be well-received by businesses (though, in this case, it was sensible and low-impact for Verizon, so it should have been), but when they are not, I, as a valued customer, have every reason to expect the business to provide a viable alternative.

“We can’t do it your way but don’t have a way of our own,” Verion’s apparent method, is not acceptable.

Policies that Empower, Not Hinder, The Customer Experience

Having devoted my entire lunch hour to this unfruitful Verizon encounter, my only opportunity to get a phone—kind of an important acquisition—was to stop by another Verizon location on my way home.

After going through the entire, shockingly-lengthy purchasing process (including swiping my card for the ~$400 in charges), I was then asked to sit idly by as the representative activated my new phone. Without really explaining the issue, she said something was not working and disappeared into a back office for at least twenty minutes. She finally came out and said that because my line had been “locked and reactivated too many times,” it was disabled, and there was no way I could activate it. At my urging, she and her manager called Verizon’s main support line one more time, but after another twenty minute delay, it was decided that the only workable option was to cancel the order and provide a refund.

Not on her mind? What I was supposed to do for a phone.

Also not on her mind? Any explanation for what could have possibly happened. Insofar as my phone was lost, I obviously had to lock the line. And insofar as I would not have reactivated it until actually purchasing my new phone, it is unclear how I managed to reactivate and deactivate it so frequently as to create a security risk around my account.

I assume that the rep from the earlier Verizon store might have done so when investigating my account and not answering my iPhone vs. Galaxy question, but, perhaps in an effort not to acknowledge how ludicrous it was that I was being locked out for something Verizon did, the new representative would not confirm that information. All she could say was no.

Given the situation, let alone the fact that I needed to provide my ID and a private password to activate a new phone, It is hard for me to fathom what security risk would exist in the event that I had truly suspended it and reactivated it repeatedly. More importantly, insofar as security restrictions exist to protect customers rather than to prevent them from gaining access to the service, it is unclear why such a policy could not be overturned in the interest of assuring a customer has access to the service for which he is paying.

Policies are necessary in customer experience design. But they should always be introduced for the purpose of empowering customers and later evaluated based on the context of the customer’s issue. Here, it is not particularly clear why the policy even exists and even less clear why it would be enforced at the expense of the customer.

If Not Omni-Channel, At Least Be Practically-Multi-Channel

To say I was frustrated with Verizon’s in-person service is an understatement. But insofar as battling the store representative seemed futile, my only option for getting a phone that evening was to race home, get a national Verizon customer service agent to resolve the issue (and compensate me appropriately for my time) and race back to the store. I only had about 45 minutes to accomplish this task, so response time was going to be key.

Verizon did not feel the same way. Though it offers live chat, it, for some reason, had its chat link grayed out due to no agents being presently available. Too rushed to dwell in frustration, I Tweeted my concern, but that went nowhere. None of the Verizon social media representatives responded with urgency.

Chat eventually worked, but the agent was very slow and unproductive. And by the time the conversation started to go anywhere, it was already too late for me to get a new phone. Insofar as I would be free to go much later that evening—at around 11PM—there was a part of me that would have liked Verizon to order its store stay open late to accommodate the customer it abused all day, but I knew that this organization was not customer-minded enough to make that happen. I was thus forced to accept a minor credit on my account in exchange for the massive hassle, continued ambiguity (the chat representative remained unclear on whether my line was no longer locked) and lack of effort in helping its loyal customer get a phone.

Particularly crazy about this final phase of my Verizon experience is the fact that the company did not seem truly capable of supporting customers via chat and social. It dabbles in the channels, but its service hardly reaches a point of adequacy, which serves as a direct affront to the notion of customer-centricity in a multi-channel world.

More importantly, it ignores any sense of pragmatism.

If a brand, either due to choice or logistical constraints, has to focus on only a few channels, it should think about how that channel availability will impact its audience. Verizon is not the only organization to deliver uninspired social and chat service, but because it is a phone company, its failure is more notable.

Without a phone, I literally did not have any means of calling the support line. Forget channel preference; this was a case of channel reality.

A customer-centric organization would have recognized—and proactively addressed—this dilemma. To the extent that customers with broken or lost phones cannot call support, online and in-person channels represent their only option. Providing fast, complete service in these channels is therefore not a bonus offering but an obligation.

At the end of the day, your business should be multi-channel enough to successfully accommodate all customers in their preferred media. But if it opts to shirk that responsibility, it should at least accommodate customers in their channels of necessity.

Commit to a 360-Degree View

Most frustrating about the Verizon process was the blatant lack of communication between channels and representatives. The initial customer service representative did not know about a major product issue. The second in-store representative did not know anything about my previous interaction with Verizon—or the status of my account—and thus had no idea until after I purchased the new phone that it could not be activated on my account.

The live chat representative had no knowledge of these experience and therefore required me, the customer, to provide a full background of the case (only for her to ultimately ignore that background and start her process from scratch). When the Twitter representative responded more than 12 hours later, he had no clarity on the issue and again asked me to explain.

Something has to give.

That the customer should not assume some responsibility for articulating his issues is unrealistic. That the customer should have to repeatedly waste time explaining his issues to staff members from the same company is insulting. Customer-centric organizations must create a workflow environment that gives all agents a complete overview of the customer’s existing and past issues.

Agents, after all, are being paid to explore and resolve customer issues. Customers are giving up their time, patience and energy (and thus paying) to seek that resolution. Which party—the agent or customer—should therefore assume the burden of best facilitating a smooth customer experience?