Customer Service, long gone

[bradvo]

I gotta share this story with ya about my cell phone. I have Sprint as a carrier. I signed a 2 year contract which will be up May 13 this year. When I first joined Sprint I lost my phone in the first couple months, so I went to a Sprint Kiosk at the mall in Federal way and ended up having to pay 150 bucks for a replacement phone ( It also was their cheapest) So lately I have been getting sales calls on my cell from sprint which I have been blowing off, then I recieve a letter from sprint wanting to save me money on my monthly bill. All of this of course is to keep me as a customer, after all my contract is up in a month in a half right.

Well yesterday i decide that maybe I will go ahead and stay with them, all I really want is a new phone. My 150 buck phone has been used and abused and it is going to die soon . I should have dumped it 6 months ago.
So I call the number on the letter I recieved, they can save me 5 bucks a month off my current billing. I tell the sales associate that what I really want is to upgrade my phone and I will sign on again for another 2 years.
She tells me she cannot do that until July?? I point out to her that my contract is up in May and I can move on to another provider and the new provider will provide me with a new phone, no cost and more then likely a similiar phone plan. No luck on my part, I tell them see ya later then.
They had chose July cause that would have been 2 years since I had to buy a replcement phone, a phone that normally would have been given away.

So I think I just got a bone head rep. I call back , get a different person , but same story.

And they want to keep customers???? This makes no sense.
Guess I may try Verizon next in May.

[heymagic]

For this part of Washington Verizon has way better coverage. We have 3 phones with them and probably 15 years of service. 2 or 3 times now they have given us new phones months early due to loss or flotation tests. No complaints with Verizon.

[SomeSailor]

I agree completely. With Verizon you can renew up to 90 days early. We have 3 phones and a wireless broadband card for my laptop that all get great coverage.

These phones are pretty expensive and they subsidize them very heavily to get you on their plans, but that's no excuse for losing a customer.

Have you taken it up with customer service? I know they can throw some pretty good incentive your way to keep you happy.

[pkrogh]

We've been with Verizon for going on 15 years and have had a very excellent
experience with them. Perfect service coverage (well, as close as you can get
anyway) and zero cost phone upgrades.

Pete

[Tedster]

I had Verizon for at least 15 years as well and you can not believe how they treated me when coverage where I live got bad with a increase in customers but no increase in towers. They told me that I was in a shadow and that there was nothing they would do. When it all came down to it I bailed to another carrier and they could care less. So the moral of the story is correct all wireless company's have too many customers to care about losing one good one! :|

[heymagic]

Bullship Ted...if you're in a shadow and they couldn't do nothing, they couldn't do nothing. No need for them to get emotional over it. Fact of life. It costs big money to add a tower , no one wants it in their back yard, permits have to be obtained. Tain't as easy as you think. What about all the people who would like a new Bayliner with a Volvo OD , about the same difference. You can't provide the service, doesn't mean you don't care or are poor at customer service, does it ??

[Tedster]

This must be "I hate Ted week again"! It was how they handled it more than the reality of it, but then you don't care this week! :roll:

[pkrogh]

Ted's hit on it. It's the way the issue is handled that makes the service good
or bad. Whatever the product.

Pete

[bradvo]

I have had 3 providers so far, have not been 100% satisfied with any of them to date.

[coolchange]

RE verizon down here they like to renew your contract for making a simple inquiry...the kiosks are very preditory and promise the world ....its a commission and they want it.

I like getting service at the costco kiosk...they stand behind what is sold in the store.

We now have t=mobile and if I want a new phone I can get one on craigs list or ebay and just change the card...no need to deal with a new contract.

[heymagic]

No, it ain't hate Ted week, ya big doof. You may be painting Verizon customer service with too dark a color. If they can't do anything, they simply can't. I'm pretty sure they don't have a card with your name on it for the "we don't care list"...maybe the rep had a bad day, maybe you were the 10th growler, or her dog just ran away, who knows. I think Verizon has a pretty good customer service dept. I've had OK service from Dell and great service from HP...RCA however, not so good.

Somewhere I have a letter of commendation from Chrysler for my customer service skils and a 100% rating. But there are days..too much physical pain, too much stress, too many calls, too many wrong parts, too many stupid questions, not enough sleep...I'll be grumpy on the phone...or the internet ;) and don't even realize it...doesn't mean I don't care ....

[Tedster]

Ok boys can't wait for Gene to get into a real tangle someday with Verizon like I did. :lol:

Gene I bragged about how good Verizon was for so many years I can't count, but suddenly no matter how loyal I was to them I just didn't matter to them at all! And don't think for one mement that I only talked to one person, try dozens for months pal or whatever I call you these days! :roll:

[linedog]

Lets all get new phone and more service, I put the fiber lines into the "Towers" Yeppers almost all of them run on Qwest fiber lines.

[bradvo]

I may just activate my other sprint phone sometime this week, I wanted one of those moto razer types, or before I make that jump can somebody refer another style I should check out?

[Go Aweigh2452]

I like my LG8300. Got a 1 mg mini card for it and store 243 MP3's on it. Use it as my primary appointment calendar, "Ipod" and phone. I don't use the web or GPS fundtions. But have seen others that do... Been using LG's for the last several years and love the battery life over any motorola product to date. I see all the latest phones my students have and the motorola products lack good battery life. Just my two cents...

[Roel Jansen]

My cellphone provider over here is Vodafone. Wife wanted a navigation system for her car. Almost bought one with a nice price reduction from an action Shell had. While looking at them at the internet I found out that Cellphone companies were offering lots of electronic goodies if you closed a contract. So went ot my provider as I knew mine was expiring and got a Tom Tom one navigation system and the latest Sony Ericsson with 3.2 mega pix camera, UMTS all for € 100 and € 5 less per month. Could have taken an other contract with less free calls and all would have been free.

[SomeSailor]

We own stock in Vodaphone. They're a huge company and very profitable. They own nearly half of Verizon, and have talked about bring GSM to the US in a big way.

Nice technology, but mainly an advantage for those who travel abroad and buy service through SIM cards.