Trapped in the 9th Circle of Verizon

For those who are not familiar with the reference to Dante's Inferno, let me summarize without being profane. The opposite of "Heaven" is the Verizon Customer Service infrastructure.

On Thursday, December 20, my FiOS internet/TV service was shut off by Verizon without any notice or warning. Verizon has the best wireless and wired technology in New England, but not the best customer service. Since I receive 4 separate paper bills every month (we've tried to get them electronic for a year, more on that later) for my home Verizon phone, internet, TV, and wireless services, I was fairly confident that Verizon could not figure out where to credit my payments, so my wife called their customer service number. What follows is a tale involving an army of customer service representatives, 4 hours on the phone, and 24 hours to restore my service.

December 20, 2007
3:00pm My wife turned on the television and it displayed "no channels available". Verizon did not call, send us a dunning letter or attempt to contact us in any way before terminating our service. My wife went to the Verizon website and found the customer service number 1-888-553-1555.

4:00pm After she held for some time, the friendly gentleman that finally came on the line said that because we lived in Massachusetts, he (inexplicably) could not actually help. He transferred her to another number 1-888-338-9333 .

4:30pm Another courteous gentleman came online, and because my wife did not have our FiOS account number available, he eventually indicated he could not locate our account number with only name, address and phone number, so he would have to transfer her to someone within the FiOS Repair Order area that had access to a different kind of customer relationship management system.

4:45pm Another kind gentleman came on line from the repair area and indicated that he could find our account, and that FiOS service had been switched off due to the mailed funds not being applied, but he could not help her with the problem since he was a repair area service facilitator. He gave my wife the number of Verizon Financial Services 1-888-250-4909.

5:30pm She waited on hold for a representative for 35 minutes. When Tiffany answered, she was clearly not pleased with my wife's lack of knowledge of our FiOS account number. She told her that the only way to pay the bill was to dial the automated payment system (no humans) at 1-800-345-6563 using the FiOS account number. She gave my wife a 9 digit alphanumeric account number but unfortunately the automated payment system needs an 18 digit account number. The automated payment system recommended another number 1-866-326-7937.

6:00pm A pleasant woman came on the phone and found our FiOS account number with no difficulty using our phone #, and reiterated that we must call the automatic payment number at 1-800-345-6563, be sure to get the receipt number, and then call 886-438-3467 to reinstate service, but they had of course already closed shortly before at 6pm Eastern Time.

6:30pm My wife called 1-800-345-6563 for automated payment and obtained a receipt number for the payment, but then had to wait until 8 am the following day to call for reinstating.

December 21, 2007
8:00amMy wife called 1-886-438-3467 and through good karma, the phone was answered by Renee, who trains others for Verizon and has a broader working knowledge of Verizon workflow. She found our account, noted that all past due balances were paid and that we did not need the receipt from the automated payment system. She also noted that our Verizon accounts have non-matching social security numbers in the phone number and the FiOS accounts. Somehow, Verizon does not believe that Dr. and Mrs. Halamka at the same address are related.

Renee initiated a three way conference call with me on my Verizon cell phone and my wife on our home phone to verify our identities and social security numbers. She then began the long and complex, multi-division process to create one bill. She also got the FiOS division on the phone and confirmed our service was reinstated.

Renee planned to call back after the holidays, and after all the various work orders went through their system, planned to create an integrated billing package for us. Unfortunately, she told us that she could not give out her full name, email address, or phone number to call her back.

January 2, 2008
5:00pm Renee deserves an immense amount of praise - she called me back today, the first Verizon employee to ever followup with us. She noted that she put in the order to consolidate all our accounts but noted that one of our cell phone accounts had the zip code 02482 instead of 02481. She agreed to place a conference call to Verizon Wireless because she is not empowered to change zip codes. She even tried to save us money by putting us into one of the national service rollup plans. All sounded perfect, until she checked her computer and noted that none of the consolidation orders she entered seemed to have processed. I have complete faith in Renee, and her tenacity may end up resolving these issues over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, today I received the following mysterious billing notice from Verizon:

"Regarding your Telephone, we recently received a request to change the billing address on your account".

Who knows what that means? Maybe they'll move my phone service next door?

There's another great Catch 22 with Verizon. We've tried for a year to enable electronic payments so that bills are automatically paid without having to worry about paper, the US Mail or figuring out what account to credit. Each month, we fill out the paperwork but still receive a paper bill the next month. According to the electronic billing policy, if you pay the paper bill, your election to pay electronically is instantly voided. If you don't pay, your service is shut off. Rock or Hard Place, Frying Pan or Fire? Your choice.

All I ask of Verizon is a single, obvious phone number to call, hiding the complexity of the company from the customer. Maybe, they could call this idea One-Bill (R). When I call that service number, a human should be empowered to take action. As CIO of Harvard Medical School and CareGroup, I spend millions every year with Verizon and I cannot navigate Verizon Customer Service. If anyone at Verizon reads this and cares about customer service, please feel free to make this blog entry a case study. I'm sure dozens of broken processes could be identified just by highlighting my experience.

I'm off to write 4 checks for my 4 paper Verizon bills now, but I feel better and at least the TV works.