Can't live with them, can't live without them - Verizon

The phone companies provide us services that we really need: cell phones, home phones, DSL and WiFi in many locations. Life without the Internet or a cell phone is hard to fathom these days. And they work so hard for our business. I recently switched to Verizon’s DSL service. I had gotten something in the mail from them at least twice a week for months. It is hard to watch a TV show without seeing a Verizon or AT&T ad. So why do they do such a crappy job of service once you sign up?

I (really Shirley) had previous experiences with ordering DSL in California back in 2000. They (AT&T) had orders backlogged for 90 days and then failed to show up for the install. They had lost 100,000 orders. Oops, back to the back of the line. I would guess that Shirley made 20 different calls to them with an average duration of 2 hours each. It took that long to get to a person who would answer the phone with “How can I provide you with excellent service?” They had no clue. Verizon has gotten better over the past ten years based on where they started but it is still really sad. This time we were given three different “service ready” dates. The 3rd time it actually worked up not until after 6 PM. They somehow forget to tell you about the after 6 PM part. It seems like it would be so easy to do it right, saving them a lot of money and their customer tremendous frustration. All they need to do is communicate the right “service ready” date and time. You might think my case was a fluke but almost the same thing happened to Eric 6 months earlier.