Verizon Makes Offering Service Blocks a Fireable Offense

Presto Vivace sends in a report from David Pogue at the New York Times, who learned from a Verizon customer service representative that the company has implemented a policy of punishing employees who suggest certain service blocks to customers looking to avoid unwanted or accidental fees. According to the representative, offering (for example) a web access block or premium SMS block without the customer asking for it can now lead to a reprimand or outright termination. The CSRs have also been directed to avoid issuing credits for such charges. "Essentially, we are to upsell customers on the $9.99 25mb/month or $29.99 unlimited packages for customers. Customers are not to be credited for charges unless they ask for the credit. And in cases such as data or premium SMS, where the occurrences may have gone months without the consumer noticing, only an initial credit can be issued."

Comments

T-mobile is great in this respect

[Anonymous Coward]

T-mobile, say what you will about its coverage. But it has excellent customer service. They voluntarily suggested these blocks, and they have lower rate plans for people out of contract who don't need subsidized phones. As the market is saturated, most people who want cell phones got them. Those who don't need/want premium service are happy with their two or three year old phones. T-mobile, and others who are offering lower rate plans without phone subsidies are going to retain these customers. And the nickle and dimers like AT&T and Verizon would find it difficult to peel off customers from them.

Re:T-mobile is great in this respect

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully agree with the T-Mobile recommendation. Another thing to try for those of you with minimal needs is one of the prepaid plans offered by some of the smaller carriers. These plans piggyback on the major provider's networks (you'll need to research to see who has paired up with whom), and they are substantially cheaper. My co-worker and his wife use these, and they pay about 100 bucks a year for both phones. There are frequently 2-for-1 minute top-off deals that come up. If you're frugal, you can get some good deals.

Re:T-mobile is great in this respect

[ZosX]

I second this. I have T-mobile and while their android phone selection is kind of sucking right now, I can still get away with wireless tethering for free and they have one of the largest caps (10 gigs). I've easily blown through 2-5 gigs already this month. They also just boosted their speeds locally and I'm now pulling like 2.5-4mbps, which is a lot better than the 1mbps I was getting previously. Don't know when I'll start to see speeds over 5mbps, but I should probably upgrade to the latest radio. The worst they do to the people that exceed their caps is drop them down to edge, which still at least leaves their phones somewhat usable. Every other provider wants to nickel and dime you to death. Boost is good for cheap phone service, but their network is terrible and nowhere even near edge quality. I'd feel pretty bad for anyone that bought their proposed android phone. Its going to be rather painful. Seems like sprint is content to milk the old nextel network for all its worth.

DIY

[audubon]

You can go to verizonwireless.com and add (or remove) the blocks yourself (note: some of the links are found at the extreme right or bottom of the page):

Account -> Plan -> Set Usage Controls -> Add/Remove Blocks

• Block Ringback Tone Purchase
• Block Premium Messaging
• Block V CAST Music
• Block Premium Animated Messaging
• Block Mobile Web
• Block Web Purchases
• Block V CAST Video Clips
• Block Application Downloads

They didn't deny it.

[Posting=!Working]

The source claims that they can be fired if they suggest data blocks unless a customer specifically asks for them.

Verizon's defense was that no employee would be fired for adding a data block if a customer specifically asked for one.

What's really disturbing is that the reporter actually accepted this as a valid defense. Their answer covers when a customer specifically asks for a block, the firing in question occurs when a customer does not.

How specifically do the customers have to ask? Is asking for them to stop these ridiculous charges enough, or do you have to ask for a data block specifically? Would you still have to request download blocking, Vcast blocking, etc. by name?

They designed the phone interface to maximize the frequency of these charges, I'm pretty sure they make stopping them as difficult as possible. As far as companies go, Verizon is among the lowest of the low.

Re:Customer Service Is a Misnomer

[green1]

One of the metrics used quite extensively by the telecom company that I work for is "churn" this is the percentage of customers that leave the service. It is compared extensively with churn numbers from our competing carriers, as well as with our historic churn levels for previous quarters or years.
The company is well aware of the cost to acquire a new customer, (they have it figured out down to fractions of a cent) and the churn rate for existing customers.

Although this doesn't help you see "why" someone left, you CAN see any trends based on various policies. (ie. we instituted policy "screw the customer" in Q1 2009, and in subsequent quarters we started to show a higher churn rate, maybe we should re-think that policy?)

Additionally whenever anyone cancels their service, A rep tries to get a reason out of the customer, this is obviously 2 fold, part of it is to try to keep them by offering some form of "save" deal, but the other one is to keep statistics on why people leave, if most people leave for "price" then you consider changes to pricing structure, if most people leave for "reliability" you consider upgrades to infrastructure, if most people leave for "customer service"... well... our execs still haven't decided what to do about that one... but I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually...

Re:Customer Service

[Widowwolf]

Do you realize on average about 1 every 2 months there are changes to multiple things such as the privacy policy, contract and a number of other things that, if you don't agree with the changes, you can terminate your service without paying the fee. People don't pay attention to their bill so they don't realize when these things happen. Same thing for credit cards. They are basically changing the contract, which if you do not agree to the new contract, you don't have to live with it, and they can't make you pay for it.

Re:Customer Service

[Widowwolf]

Basically if you get your bill and notice there is a change to ANY part of the contract or service agreement(Such as trying to force you to a different plan or changing procedures for billing) This is a change to the original contract you signed with the carrier. Look for your provider to bury changes to Terms of Service with your bill. Quite often providers modify their service plans, much of the time the modification is a benefit. It doesn't matter, this voids the previous contract. Read the small print on those inserts included with your bill, it will spell out that you have 30 days (may vary on where you live) to cancel your contract with no charge simply because they changed the contract. Pay attention to how it tells you to cancel because sometimes that's very important. But remember if you pay that bill before this, most time it is look at as if you agree to the new changes and henceforth the new contract.