Poor Phone, Great Service

As a New Year’s present to myself, I broke down and decided to get a new phone. I think I got my first phone the summer after my senior year of high school, approximately July 2003. I waited a full three years before upgrading to my second phone in August 2006.

I never had an issue with either device. A few minor blemishes but no major damage. They certainly never needed replacements. They could’ve lasted longer, but I eventually the outdatedness of a phone wears on you. I don’t have to be the first guy on the block with the cool, new gadget, but I also don’t want to fall too far behind.

So, after a 26-month run with the reliable flip phone, I decided to upgrade for ’09 to the LG Dare. I looked into Verizon’s Blackberry Storm, and even toyed with the idea of switching to AT&T and investing in an iPhone. Buying the phones was feasible, but their monthly plans were too much for me to make the leap at this point.

Instead, I opted for a more financially reasonable alternative, the LG Dare. It has the touch screen, music capabilities, 3.2 megapixel camera, mobile Internet (though I’m on a usage-based pay system, so I probably won’t use it much) and plenty of other cool features. Plus, it should keep my monthly phone bill within $5 or $10 of what it was with my old phone.

The phone arrived a week ago, and I was impressed. Admittedly, the touch screen had me worried at first, but after a few hours of toying around, it felt natural and my texting capabilities seemed just as proficient as they were on my old phones keypad (although Jessie will tell you I wasn’t all that proficient to begin with.)

I restored my contacts, adjusted the settings to my liking, tried out the camera, and was feeling very comfortable with my decision to upgrade. Then Jessie sent me a PIX message, and it wouldn’t come through. I also couldn’t access mobile Internet.

And so began everyone’s favorite venture into the world of customer service. Customer Service Saturday began at about 11 a.m. My first call featured only a 10-minute wait on hold before a Middle-Eastern-sounding gentleman picked up. I forget his name, but he was a great help. He listened to my problem, seemed to identify the problem and when I hung up a few minutes later, everything was working properly. I was able to send and receive PIX and access mobile Web.

That lasted for all of 45 minutes. Then I was again not able to send or receive PIX or access mobile Web. So, I made my second call to Verizon’s customer service, working through the several steps of the automated directory before being put on hold by technical support once again. After a 15-minute wait, I hung up and called back. My bad. Another 20-minute wait before a woman with a valley girl manner-of-speaking picked up.

She apologized for my long wait, heard me out about my story, including my previous call to Verizon, and then apologized for that. She said the first guy might have left my account open and logged out of the system incorrectly, resetting whatever he had fixed. It seemed plausible to me. So, the lady (again, I forget the name) went through some steps that included restoring all of my phone settings to factory defaults. And voila, it was working again.

For an hour or so I was able to send and receive PIX messages and access mobile Internet. Then, the same problem reared its ugly head. To add insult to injury, I was receiving the error message: “Unable to verify your account information. Please call Customer Service.” Oh, if my phone only knew.

Third time’s the charm, right? Well, it was the most charming anyway. After another 15-minute wait on hold, I was greeted with the Tennessee twang of Robin. I feel like all customer service representatives should be trained to speak with a southern accent. It’s just hard to stay frustrated when you hear that.

She was very sympathetic to my situation and knew when pipe in with a lighthearted comment. After listening to my whole spiel, she went through similar steps as the others, and had my phone working again. She even sent me a PIX message of her cat, Satin, to test if my phone was receiving them. Of course, after what I’d been through already, I was hardly convinced that this was a permanent fix. Thankfully, she wasn’t entirely convinced either. Rather than ending it there,
she made it clear that she wasn’t going to let me stay in this cycle of temporary fixes.

I had her number from the PIX message she sent me. It was after p.m. at this point. She said that she was almost done at work for the day, and off Sunday, but if the problem resurfaced, I was to send her a text and she would help me take the next step on Monday.

Sure enough, the problem was back within a couple hours of hanging up. I waited until Sunday to send the text, and within 20 minutes, Robin said that she’d be happy to take care of it Monday morning. This was true customer service.

This morning, I sent the text to give her my work number where she could contact me—saving me the hassle of working through the grapevine of Verizon’s automated customer service.

With nothing irregular showing on my account settings and no similar problems reported by other LG Dare users, Robin came to the decision that I must simply have a malfunctioning device. So, she put in an order for me to receive a replacement Dare, which she said should arrive here by Wednesday.

I couldn’t be more frustrated with my new phone. It should work brand new out of the box. Without having any issues with my previous phones, it’s more than discouraging to run into this problem one week after buying the new device. But the story of my failed phone is of secondary significance here.

I don’t have a lot of experience with customer service people (oh, the fun I have to look forward to, I know), but this is an example of one person who really went above and beyond the duties of her job to ensure that a customer was taken care of. I enjoy the warm and fuzzy human-interest story as much as anyone, and I’m glad to get to tell this one. It’s refreshing when you encounter someone who displays genuine caring for selfless reasons.

Thanks, Robin. May the good karma find its way back to you soon.