The Lesser of Three Evils
Considering the season with such a title, one would think I am about to talk politics. You'd be wrong. Instead I want to talk about communication. Wireless communication actually, or to be more exact, the providers that provide it.
Due to some poor customer service back in September, I actually can claim to have experienced service from three of the "top" players: Sprint (my former provider), Alltell (my current) and Verizon (who was highly rated by Consumer Reports).
So that others can learn from my trials and tribulations and in turn make informed decisions I've decided to share my experience on this blog. Read on if you are in the market for wireless.
Don't let the fact about who is the current provider lead you to surmise that I would recommend them, because you would be mistaken.
Here is my experience with them in the order I signed up with each....
Verizon:
Out of all three, Verizon made the fewest mistakes and provided the best customer service. Every rep not only gave me their name, but an extension I could call to leave a voice mail for them. Unfortunately their one mistake was a big one: despite TWO online chats with two different reps, while they can provide SERVICE in La Crosse, they can't provide PHONE NUMBERS in La Crosse because the area currently isn't a primary market for them. In turn Verizon cannot port our old numbers to their new phones. The two reps I chatted with very clearly said that porting would not be an issue. They were both completely wrong. Supposedly Verizon will be buying Alltel within a year, and then Verizon will be a primary player in our market. I am looking forward to this.
Sprint:
Without going into details, let's just say that I've spent the last two years detesting Sprint for the worst customer service I've ever received when I originally signed onto my sister's family plan two years ago. I'd been waiting oh-so-eagerly to bolt as soon as I could. Which is why I tried Verizon above. When Verizon fell through I went back to researching and comparing prices, and sadly admitted that (at first glance) Sprint was about $20 less per month than Alltel (for a plan with three phones), and I couldn't justify paying $240 per year just to be rid of Sprint. So after two hours on the phone making sure Sprint could handle moving our numbers from my sister's account to our own, and picking out phones and a plan, I begrudgingly went back with Sprint. Until the next day, when my sister called telling me she'd gotten both a call and an email regarding the change in her plan. So when I called Sprint back to find out what was up, and they told me that I didn't have a plan of my own and that I would have to go through the entire sign-up process all over again... well, I "cancelled" that account (that never existed I guess) and took a closer look at Alltel.
Alltel:
So Alltel is who we ended up with. Like Verizon, they claimed to be able to port any number onto their phone, but when it came down to it, they were unable to port Ardelle's Arizona number... even though Alltel covers Arizona as a primary market, Alltel divides their markets up and can't work between them. Go figure. But this held up the delivery. When I called them to clear that up, they said it was now taken care of... but it wasn't, and the phones were STILL being held. But then they ported our numbers away from Sprint, without delivering the phones! So we had NO PHONE SERVICE for three days. After a long frustrated phone call the phones finally arrived, two weeks after they were ordered. But the numbers were on the wrong phones, and accessories that were suppose to be provided as consolation for the poor service have never arrived. And for some reason the phones seem to roam a lot more than the ones we had with Sprint, and the clarity in the calls seems worse than Sprint. Perhaps it is the phones we got, I don't know, but Alltel actually seems worse than Sprint when it comes to product quality, and only slightly better when it comes to customer service. Their website for managing the account even seems worse than Sprint's (and surprisingly parts of it only work on Internet Explorer... which means I can't use it on my mac!).
If I learned anything from all this, here it is:
Due to some poor customer service back in September, I actually can claim to have experienced service from three of the "top" players: Sprint (my former provider), Alltell (my current) and Verizon (who was highly rated by Consumer Reports).
So that others can learn from my trials and tribulations and in turn make informed decisions I've decided to share my experience on this blog. Read on if you are in the market for wireless.
Don't let the fact about who is the current provider lead you to surmise that I would recommend them, because you would be mistaken.
Here is my experience with them in the order I signed up with each....
Verizon:
Out of all three, Verizon made the fewest mistakes and provided the best customer service. Every rep not only gave me their name, but an extension I could call to leave a voice mail for them. Unfortunately their one mistake was a big one: despite TWO online chats with two different reps, while they can provide SERVICE in La Crosse, they can't provide PHONE NUMBERS in La Crosse because the area currently isn't a primary market for them. In turn Verizon cannot port our old numbers to their new phones. The two reps I chatted with very clearly said that porting would not be an issue. They were both completely wrong. Supposedly Verizon will be buying Alltel within a year, and then Verizon will be a primary player in our market. I am looking forward to this.
Sprint:
Without going into details, let's just say that I've spent the last two years detesting Sprint for the worst customer service I've ever received when I originally signed onto my sister's family plan two years ago. I'd been waiting oh-so-eagerly to bolt as soon as I could. Which is why I tried Verizon above. When Verizon fell through I went back to researching and comparing prices, and sadly admitted that (at first glance) Sprint was about $20 less per month than Alltel (for a plan with three phones), and I couldn't justify paying $240 per year just to be rid of Sprint. So after two hours on the phone making sure Sprint could handle moving our numbers from my sister's account to our own, and picking out phones and a plan, I begrudgingly went back with Sprint. Until the next day, when my sister called telling me she'd gotten both a call and an email regarding the change in her plan. So when I called Sprint back to find out what was up, and they told me that I didn't have a plan of my own and that I would have to go through the entire sign-up process all over again... well, I "cancelled" that account (that never existed I guess) and took a closer look at Alltel.
Alltel:
So Alltel is who we ended up with. Like Verizon, they claimed to be able to port any number onto their phone, but when it came down to it, they were unable to port Ardelle's Arizona number... even though Alltel covers Arizona as a primary market, Alltel divides their markets up and can't work between them. Go figure. But this held up the delivery. When I called them to clear that up, they said it was now taken care of... but it wasn't, and the phones were STILL being held. But then they ported our numbers away from Sprint, without delivering the phones! So we had NO PHONE SERVICE for three days. After a long frustrated phone call the phones finally arrived, two weeks after they were ordered. But the numbers were on the wrong phones, and accessories that were suppose to be provided as consolation for the poor service have never arrived. And for some reason the phones seem to roam a lot more than the ones we had with Sprint, and the clarity in the calls seems worse than Sprint. Perhaps it is the phones we got, I don't know, but Alltel actually seems worse than Sprint when it comes to product quality, and only slightly better when it comes to customer service. Their website for managing the account even seems worse than Sprint's (and surprisingly parts of it only work on Internet Explorer... which means I can't use it on my mac!).
If I learned anything from all this, here it is:
- Keep notes. Even if you're purchasing and not complaining, note the reps name and what was agreed upon.
- Everybody has different offers. Not only should you shop around between different providers, but the same provider will offer different deals in different stores. Flagship stores have their own deals and warranties, satellite stores have other deals and warranties, and online shops have their own deals and warranties as well. The online stores have much better deals (no sign-up fees every so often, phone prices are lower, free shipping), but if something goes wrong as it did in my case, you end up paying for it by spending too much time trying to explain things to customer service.
posted by a n d y at
9:39 PM
4 Comments:
I just discovered that Alltel charged me activation fees for each line... even though my receipt clearly states that the activation fee was waived.
Mary's "Mobile Web" was suppose to be free the first month with Alltel... but they charged for it.
Alltel is now sending me an EXTRA BILL for an account and a phone number that I am not associated with.
So I just tried to take care of this extra bill... called at 8:55, the rep said I needed to be transferred to the "Fraud" department. Was transferred... but it closed at 5pm! I called Alltel back, only to find the customer service department closes at 9pm... at it was 9:04! *@#! I really am disliking Alltel....
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