Verizon Fios

Verizon (formally Bell Atlantic and before that Bell of Pennsylvania) used to be what I considered the Gold Standard in Customer Service. There was no one better in the way their customer service handled your calls and the professionalism of their technicians who visit your home or business. From the 1980’s until about 2000, every experience with Verizon’s telephone representatives was absolutely the best — they clearly had high standards and exceptional training.
The decline began with the introduction of DSL internet service, but it wasn’t until Verizon began offering FIOS that they went into the tank.
In 2008 when Verizon FIOS became available in our neighborhood we decided to switch over from Comcast because Comcast customer service was no very good, our monthly bill had increased, and we wanted to try FIOS.
From the very beginning, our experience with Verizon customer service was awful. First of all they would never answer the phone. Imagine that, a phone company that can’t get their act together to answer customers calls. We were happy with the actual FIOS TV picture and the internet speed, however, we lost our TV signal twice due to a bad main power box in the basement over the 3 ½ hrs we had FIOS. Because they didn’t answer the phone, it was always a hassle to connect with them to request service — but after holding for over 15 minutes each time we eventually got someone on the phone to request service.
Over the last year Verizon continued to increase our monthly bill, which made us contact Comcast to compare prices for the same exact service. We realized that we would be able to save $ 70.00 per month for the same TV, telephone service, and internet connection/​speed. So we recently switched to Comcast and are thrilled with everything. We’re saving lots of money per month and Comcast was even willing to give us a credit for the amount we had to pay Verizon to opt out of our contract early.
The main reason I’m taking the time to write this is that Verizon owed us an $ 88.00 refund, when all the credits and debits were reconciled. They said we would send a refund check within 30 days. The 30 days came and went with no check. I called and spoke w/​a rep. and they said it would take another 30 day cycle to send us the check. Ok, I was a little annoyed, but I decided to just wait it out. Yep, you guessed it, the check never arrived. At this point I called the CEO’s office and got someone to listen, and he said he would have someone contact me within 24 hours.
I promptly received a call from Brenda a nice and professionally spoken women form their Escalation Team who took my information and said she would get back to me shortly. The next day she called and said that she spoke with the appropriate department and they said it would take an additional 30 to 60 days to get the refund check. I told her this was unacceptable, that they were purposely floating our money — and that if she could not overnight our refund check by the next day, I would contact the CEO. She called back later and said that they were making arrangements to speed up our refund, but that it might take up to a week. I figured that was better than 30 to 60 days, so I accepted it. It turns out the check was overnighted and received the very next day. A few days later the Brenda called to follow up and see if the check was received.
So the moral of this story is that if Verizon ran their business like they do when their escalation team gets involved, they wouldn’t get people like me to write unpleasant reviews like this.
The other interesting thing about this story is that before we switched to Verizon, Comcast’s customer service was horrible — bad training, unpleasant reps, etc.
But, it’s clear that Brain Roberts, Comcast CEO came to realize how bad it was and took appropriate actions to correct it. Our recent experiences with Comcast customer service has been nothing but perfect! They answer their phone promptly, are extremely well-​trained, and exceptionally pleasant and professional. We had several issues to straighten out with them after service was installed — and their phone reps. and home technicians were just the way anyone reasonable customer would expect from a large corporation. VERIZON — YOU SHOULD FIGURE OUT HOW COMCAST DOES IT, AND COPY IT. YOU, YOUR CUSTOMERS AND YOUR STOCKHOLDERS WILL BE BETTER OFF.