I have recently purchased a brand-spankin’ new Treo 700w phone. This is the phone I’ve been waiting for, as it combines the cool form factor of the Treo line with Windows Mobile. I had a Sidekick II previously (well, until last night when I ported my number), but due to its size I’ve avoided using it and instead moved to a Razr. But when I go to work, and I need all my appointments, etc I’ve resorted to carrying my iPaq hx4700 around (which is a totally awesome device, but a little large). So basically, i’ve been carrying around a phone and a PDA. So when I heard the Treo 700w was going to happen I was ecstatic. It was the phone I wished existed. I really like Windows Mobile and I’ve looked at various other similar phones but never saw quite what I wanted.
When the 700 became available a short while back, I held off just jumping at the thing because I really wanted to be sure I wanted it. But one day as I put on my jacket and realized all the crap I was carrying around with me, I knew I needed to just do it. So I finally did. I tried to go to a store that sold Verizon, but they couldn’t touch the price that the Verizon web site could do, so I ordered online on Friday.
Simple Things Made Difficult!
I got the order confirmation email and the next day decided to take advantage of the email address in the message to ask for a tracking number. I wanted to know when it was coming so I could be home to get it or at least go home right after it arrived to make sure it didn’t walk off. I sent the email, but the email bounced. Twice. I only clicked the address, so I know I didn’t mistype it. I then noticed that they had an online order status page on their site. So I typed my information in there. It rejected me, telling me I had something incorrect or misformatted. I adjusted the order number a bit and then it complained that the order number was invalid, which told me I had the order number right the first time. The only other piece of info it wanted was my last name, and I dunno but I’m pretty sure I got that part right 
. So I finally called and talked to someone after waiting 20 minutes. My phone order was processed and should be going out soon, should have it by Wednesday. But I couldn’t get a tracking number yet because it hadn’t actually made it to shipping yet. At the same time I mentioned that the order status page, nor the email address worked to get status. They said that was odd. I knew that.
When I had hung up, it didn’t really sound like anyone was going to do anything about the bad email/order status stuff. I played with those things more over the weekend, and since they still didn’t work, I decided I’d tell them again the next time I called to get my tracking number. I figured first time customers like myself might find it rather frustrating to not be able to easily get information about their orders. It should be really simple.
On Tuesday, I received an email welcoming me to Verizon wireless. It had my new phone number on it and all that. Excellent. I decided to call again and find out where things where and get a tracking number since it should have shipped by now. I talked to some guy in the morning who gave me the number, which I wrote down. But then I also mentioned the issues about the web site and email bounces. He said he’d forward me to someone that could help me with that. Keep in mind I keep trying this because their stuff is broken and I’m letting them know so they can fix it. So this is for their benefit. Care, dammit!
I told this new person that the email address in the confirmation email had bounced and that’s not cool. It went something like this:
“Hi, yeah, I tried to use the email address you send out in the order confirmation emails, but the email bounced.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“What’s ‘bounce’?” Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner. This is who’s going to help me with with this issue? Someone that doesn’t know what an email bounce is? He said I should go to the web site and use the online form to report my issues. Crafty. Both of these people gave me the sense that they couldn’t care less why I was calling and interrupting their nap.
It was after I hung up that I realized the tracking number I got was wrong. Woot. It’s possible I wrote it wrong, who knows. So I growled and wrote a note to the customer service people as directed by the last person. I wrote that I was a new customer and all I want is my tracking number, and that so far such a simple thing has been extremely difficult to get. I also reported the items on the web site/email address and discussed my frustration with the people I was talking to.
When I sent the form, I put in my new phone number, thinking that might be a helpful way to look me up in the system now. Well, when you do that it demans the last four digits of your social for security reasons. OK, I did that too. Off it went.
So I finally went to work and called again to get my tracking number. Had to talk to 3 people before finally talking to someone who could just tell me where my damn phone was. This person was actually very nice, though why did I have to go through two others to get to her, I don’t know. I got the tracking number, tested it, and it worked finally. It was going to arrive the next day. I figured maybe I should also ask if I needed to be home to sign for the package. Yes, I was told. Ugh, now I have to stay home just to wait for a package that might show up sometime in the next century because they won’t just leave it. I thought about redirecting it to work, but at this point, I didn’t want to confuse matters further.
Later that night, I received a response to my email I sent via their web form in which I was accused of some kind of unauthorized crap:
“I apologize for the inconvenience; however, I do not show the account holder has added your name as an authorized contact on this account. At this time I am unable to assist you with your request.”Nice. They didn’t even bother to read the stupid email or figure out what’s going on. “Lakeisha”, if that is indeed your real name, you suck at your job. I wrote a big scathing response (which I never sent, otherwise I really would have been marked in their database as ‘raving lunatic’) stating that the guy told me to write the damn email and I used the phone number they gave me! I think that because the phone wasn’t activated, I wasn’t officially connected to that phone number yet. But see, that’s not my problem. At this point, I had pretty much had it with Verizon, and I didn’t even have my phone yet! The interesting part is that in the email I sent I expressed my displeasure and said if these frustrating things keep happening, I might just return the phone immediately. Apparently, they don’t care.
The Right Way
I just point out here that a friend of mine ordered a phone from Sprint around the same time and got a nice email telling the fact that it was shipped and here’s your tracking number and expected arrival date. Verizon, is that so hard? I swear, just do that (well, and fix your order status page… who knows maybe it all tells you this, but I never got to see it) and you’d have avoided all the pain I had to endure.
A Beacon Of Hope
The next day, I sat home waiting for the package. During my wait, and because of the ridiculous response I got from the email support, I decided to call and talk to a live person to ask what the heck was going on with their customer service. Fortunately, I got in touch with a guy that really was helpful and understanding and after helping and listening for quite a bit, I got off the phone feeling pretty good about the way I was treated for once. He actually made sure all my billing stuff was correct and we talked about changing phone numbers and what that entails, etc.
Eventually the phone arrived, and after being told I’d need to be there to sign, the FedEx guy just dropped it on my door and left. No signing. :-/
I unpacked the phone and followed the directions and I got it programmed and working in minutes. Syncing with my desktop machine also took seconds after installing the latest ActiveSync. So in no time all my data was on my phone. Awesome! The EVDO speed rocks, the phone itself rocks, and their Wireless Sync service seems really cool. Since the call before my phone arrived and every call since, their customer service has actually been top notch. I’m now not sure how I got the losers before. Maybe it was losers shift. I even just last night ported my number from the Sidekick to my Treo and that went quickly and smoothly. I was actually amazed how easy it was.
The only negative about the phone so far is that the reception at work is nowhere near as good as my Cingular phone. But, I’ll live with it for now because this phone and the service/network speed has been outstanding.
So despite all the frustrations, I’m extremely happy with the purchase and I highly recommend the phone. I would rate the new customer experience at Verizon to be about a 4, but the phone and customer service since the phone arrived to be about a 9 (I’m subtracting one point for the wacky reception at work).
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