Date: 09/23/13 To: Verizon Wireless Customer Service From: Customer of 18 years Patrick Staples Reference: Unsatisfied Loyal Customer Service Treatment To all it concerns: Today I asked a simple question that I guess became a request for a favor based on 18 years as a loyal Verizon customer and was met with unyielding resistance. Please read through to the end, be patient there is a very valid point, you may understand and or learn something along the way, thank you… I had and currently have (5) Smart Phones from / through Verizon. Specifically the Verizon store located at 6387 E. State Street Rockford, Illinois 61108; Store #202226. Again, have been a customer there for 18 years. And in my opinion, that will be changing soon if we cannot come up with a rather simple cost effective solution / resolution that we; (My Family and I as Customers & Verizon) can work with. Here’s the problem. A long friend of the family, whom babysat for our kids since they were born had always had a cell phone bought and paid for by us. My children are now ages 18 and 16 respectfully and since the oldest was about 15, we haven’t had her babysit since that time. Yet, we have continuously maintained a cell phone, later a “smart” phone for her. She recently got married, a full time job and as of last week is using a different cell phone service / carrier. Hence, no longer needing the phone we have always provided… Not Verizon’s problem, nor am I trying to make such. It’s the back story that brings me to today. I asked one of the sales reps about being able to “drop” that phone from our account, after all we have been with them since 1995 and we would still be maintaining (4) “smart phones” throughout anyway. The sales rep was polite and cordial as expected of her and went to retrieve the store manager; Doug (Last Name Unknown). Upon Doug’s arrival, he regurgitated all the pre-programed responses as one would expect any manager would. However, when asked about specific conditions and / or considerations didn’t want to hear, try to understand or even listen to a Customer’s problem. After all I was only reaching out for his help with a reasonable solution / resolution to this problem. Before I start, I feel I must say… I do understand the importance and commitment yielded from signing a contractual obligation… I get it, however, if you continue to read further you will also see and possibly understand my point as well. • “Drop” (1) phone from an account that has continuously grown, providing and generating profit specifically for this store. • Still maintaining (4) “Smart phones” to which we are constantly accessorizing and upgrading • Not that it matters in this particular incident, but I had already discussed with the last sales person I dealt with, closer to Christmas about getting (3-4) of the “Jabra” visor type Blue Tooth devices for our cars (estimated $100 / ea.) Simple resolution would be just that, allow me to drop the one phone without the “early cancelation” penalty fee; $180.00 since the contract for that particular phone doesn’t terminate until March 30th, 2014. I proposed to Doug, this example… If we are able to upgrade, in some cases early, for one phone by using another phones eligibility, how come we couldn’t terminate one phone based on another phone’s eligibility. His immediate reaction as well as the sale reps reaction was… why didn’t I think of that earlier. Then he just as quickly changed his outlook. Stating that “Verizon” contracts you the phone for that specific amount of time. My first retort was that we didn’t buy another phone for that line, we just activated an old black berry we had. He responded we don’t take outdated equipment back, following up with, we (Verizon) do not take any old phones back… My response, ok, I’ll keep the old black berry and just drop the phone number, we do not need that number anymore anyway. We discussed the possibility of reducing the current phone’s status to a lessor phone and paying approximately $13-15 / month vs. $51+ /month. I explained why even have a phone lessor or not, if we are not even going to use it, that was not the point. In my opinion although, in some cases a viable solution, it was simply a diversion away from the original resolution. I posed the consideration of we have been loyal customers for 18 years now and there is absolutely nothing we can do to accommodate that kind of unyielding loyalty… Really? Here’s a dollars and cents point of view, since customer loyalty doesn’t seem to weight anything anymore. Our Family pays an estimated $330. + Each month for (5) phones, again, not Verizon’s problem, our choice… for the sake of math, I’m using the figure of $300. Now if we were go all out and cancel all of our phones / services switching another carrier, at this point as you will see, I’ve done the math and I am definitely going to terminate all contracts with Verizon if the seemingly simple resolution is not achieved. Penalty fee for early contract termination… $180 / per phone. Penalty fees… 5 (phones) X $180 / each = $900.00 As opposed to: 5 (phones) equaling $300 / month X 24 (2 year contract) = $7,200.00 $7,200.00 $900.00 = $6,300.00 Loss Let’s further this point, we live in a social network / media world and I plan to spread the word of my distain with Verizon. Now mathematically where this comes in play. I have over 400 friends on Facebook, my wife has over 300. A very conservative number would be 1%; I’m willing to bet I can convince 1% of my friends, using my story to have them terminate their contracts with Verizon as well as my wife… Here’s how that breaks down; most of our friends are 1-2 child Family households… making the average family (3.5) members / phone contracts per household, not too unreasonable. Using the above information, consider the following… I figured only (7) families conservatively at (3.5) phones per, rounding down and using (3). Per household: 3 X 180 = 540 penalty fees Per household: 180 / month X 24 months = $4,320.00 Loss per/ month $4,320.00 $540.00 = $3,780.00 Loss Multiply that by (7) Households plus ours: (7) Households at the above figures: 540 X 7 = $3,780 Penalty fees (7) Households at the above figures: 4,320 X 7 = $30,240.00 Loss per/month Adding in the original figures from our household: (5) Phones X 180 = $900.00 Penalty fees ($300 / month) X 24 months = $7,200 Loss per/month $30,240.00 $7,200.00 = $37,440.00 Loss In conclusion, I feel it would make sound business sense as well as good sense with customer relations to allow the occasional accommodations be made for the long term loyal customer(s)… Obviously practiced on a case by case basis. Again, the only reasonable resolution I see here is to allow me to simply drop one (1) phone off an account that will continuously still maintain four (4) more phones and sometime rather that spewing a well-rehearsed / preprogramed response, maybe just maybe allow for the occasional accommodation when deserved / needed. Respectfully Submitted, Patrick J. Staples 1-815-262-3833
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 01:44:30 +0000
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