AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon goaded into customer service showdown
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted September 29th 2009 2:59PM
posted September 29th 2009 2:59PM
It doesn't matter who your carrier is, you're gonna have some complaints. But is the grass always greener somewhere else? To answer that question, the kids at Laptop Magazine have conducted a test of the customer service practices of the big four (Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T) to ascertain each company's friendliness, knowledge, and timeliness. The publication placed customer service calls twice during a week (once at midday and once during rush hour), visited two stores per carrier in New York City, and tried to find solutions to its problems using each carrier's online knowledge base. Apparently, T-Mobile takes the prize for in-store assistance and web support, and Sprint, while not always able to answer questions, at least had taken steps to streamline the support process (and the fact that its employees were friendly didn't hurt). Apparently Verizon Wireless offered solid in-store support (albeit with grumpy employees), "quick and accurate phone support" and "solid" online help. AT&T, sadly, was the loser here -- Laptop says it left the store "shocked" that one representative couldn't figure out how to get email up and running on its Blackberry. Shocking! Hit the read link to see for yourself.
NOTHING IN THE WORLD compared to the incompetence of AT&T! They are THE WORST company I have EVER had to deal with, and it would be nice if they could read all of these posts to see what people thing of them! Not that they would give a sh**.
I have Verizon and, as with most carriers that big, the right hand doesn't always appear to know what the left hand is doing. The Customer Service people are courteous on the phone and in the store but information often is conflicting. I have a Palm Treo 755p and I had one girl on the phone tell me I had no choice but to take the internet plan because the 755p required it BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE. They will automatically add it to your account once you go to any PDA but you can have it removed or take it off yourself online. My biggest complaint about any of them is how cotton-pickin expensive they are and how quickly you can rack up unexpected charges, especially those charges they bill in advance. We got shanghied into having to keep a third line, too, because a sales rep at the store either lied through his teeth or didn't know his stuff. He told us we could drop the line in 3 months but it turned out we had to keep it for the 10 months remaining on it's contract or we'd get hit with an early termination fee! I miss MetroPCS. They were so simple and cheap!
Trying to deal with Verizon on the phone is a nightmare! I tried three hours one day just to get a working number for their FIOS support department. They've over-billed me more than once on my cell phone and when I call they can never figure out what the phony charges are even for on their own bill. They eventually credit the money back to me but after lengthy wait to speak with a real human being and multiple transfers where they frequently drop the call and always ask me over and over again for my name, phone number, SSN, etc... Once when I called I could barely hear the person who apologized because "they were having problems with their phones"; They ARE the "phone company"!!! LMAO
I know we can all be grumpy about in store service. I live in a small community and we have an ATT store here that I want to rave about. The story goes that back about 18 months ago my father died (expected but painful nonetheless). Just before his death (a week in fact) I had purchased an iPhone. The phone was stolen from my purse while I was cleaning out his apartment. I was so distraught between the loss of my father and now this added emotional burden. And add to that, all the arrangements for the funeral that had to be made, I was beside myself. I went back to the store I'd purchased the phone from and they helped me replace it. But wait, there's more... a week later when I went to pick up the new phone they showed me how they could look up the unique identifier on my old phone and trace it to the person(s) who were now illegally using it! I gave that information to the local police with whom I had filed a report. And guess what? It led to the apprehension and arrest of the "villain" who had hit me so hard in my time of need!!!!! None of this would have happened had it not been for the caring hearts of those service representatives in the store.
Tmobile is the worst carrier i've ever had!!! Customer Service is horrible! I left Sprint to go with them because i heard great things about their phones and the myFaves plan was appealing. Well come to find out i added a line and bought a phone with the terms that the customer serice guy clearly explained that i was able to make payments on my new phone. Well come to find out i the full amount was due on my next bill and there was nothing i could do about it (after i argued many times with those stupid tmobile punks). Fine strike 1...Next with that same extra line i added to plan i was told that i could talk to them freely without putting them on my myFaves. well i was wrong...my next bill came out too $450!!! Again they were very unhelpful. STRIKE 2. The last thing that got me to cancel my whole account was that when i asked for them to clear some of these charges because of THEIR misinformation. They just said sign another 2 year contract and they will take 20% of the charges off...bahhhhaaahaa. No thank you! they lost a valuable customer...SO SUCK IT TMOBILE!
ATT is the worst with service. if anything goes wrong (i.e.phone defective, i have scotch tape on phone to not loose the back) )you are on phone forever and nothing gets resolved. the staff at centers are not helpful and always refer to 800 number..
A quote from the article reads: "the kids at Laptop Magazine have conducted a test of the customer service practices of the big four."
What kids? Who cares? I want professional opinions and objective data from professionals... not a bunch of kids! Is this yet another example of the unprofessional "journalism" that continually gets posted on AOL?
Verizon is the worst service....my entire family has had trouble with them....they keep giving us extra charges and call it Data....my son sent 4 phones back FED EX until he got one that worked for his trip to Europe then it did not work in Europe because Verizon forgot to tell him to put a SIM card in it to activate it and the Europe SIM cards don't work. We have calls that don't ring in and calls that are lost and the corporate store in Las Vegas is the worst on Eastern near St. Rose Parkway...It must be a training store because no one knows what they are doing!
I've never had any issues with AT&T, great service, no problems with calls, etc. I've had Sprint before & had many problems including poor reception. I had an issue using a coupon code with AT&T once and when I complained they actually wiped out my months bill for me for the trouble!
My husband was so angry with Sprint, he threw the phone in the pond. He laughs out loud everytime he hears a commercial for them...
I agree a 100% ATT is the worst, for home or business, it looks like they are forcing their employee to sell the highest package price wise, even though the customer choses the lowest price, and it takes one year to fix the problem. I can prove it, I have letters, and all sorts of documentation. They tell you it has been taking care of, but in reality it has not, so you keep calling, holding, wasting their time and your time, plus the frustration of repeating the same thing, for every call, over and over.
Insight has a good system, you call about an issue, you can be sure it is being taking care of the first time you call, and I hardly call them now, I do not have any complaint to call about.
Verizon Wireless is the best cell phone company! While the worst is Hawaiian Tel Com Wireless-who is piggyback by Sprint,because
They cheat Their Customers by cutting service early,usually on Friday's just before They close for the day-when in some cases the
minutes weren't used up,because the phones weren't used yet! Or We pay,& the phones aren't turned back on,so We had to
return back to the Phonemart,to the same lady who did the transaction a half hour or hour before,& he ask for the receipt in a rude
tone! Well finally We went over to Verizon Wireless,after Our phones were turned off,even after payments were made!
And I heard T mobile is another good cell phone company according to former co-workers!
for some of us that don't get "plans" for their phone, what they like to do is set you up with a pay as you go (att), and say things like "we have a great rewards plan for you", which means that every time you refill it with dough, you come supposedly closer to something like 25 dollars worth of more air time, which is actually nothing, because now when someone texts me of phones me, it always says i have 2 CALLS or 2 Messages instead of just one, and although i only have one message to read, i got charged twice. And that's after they already raised the price on everything... And what else do you know? oh yeah. The pay as you go rewards program will be over by so and so a time in october.... and they let me know with what exactly? oh great. a text that will show up as two texts. i spent a dollar without thinking about it! And so far, they've sent me that message 4 times so far. So that's what? like 4 dollars down the drain? for their stupid ads.
HAWAIIANTELCOM WIRELESS IN HAWAII IS THE WORST CELL PHONE COMPANY,
THEY RIP THEIR CUSTOMERS OFF,EVEN THOUGH WE JUST PAY,OUR PHONES
AREN'T TURNED BACK ON,TILL WE RETURN WITH A RECEIPT TO THE SAME LADY
WHO HELPED US,THEN ITS ON,THEN OFF,EXCUSE WAS WE USED UP OUR 200
MINUTES IN A HALF HOUR,HUH! SO WE WENT OVER TO VERIZON WIRELESS WITH
NO REGRETS!
I guess I've had all the luck - I've had AT&T/Cingular/AT&T for the past 12 years. I've never had problems with any of the phones or calling plans I've had over the years, and whenever I did have to speak with anyone, their customer service was always quick, knowledgeable, courteous and friendly. Same for in-store personnel. It's very rare that I get calls dropped, and my reception is always good - even when I go to less populized areas. I've also always had Nokia phones - no issues with them either.
For us, Verizon was horrible and we felt their policies bordered on unethical. We will never go back, which is a problem because we currently live in an area where Verizon is the only reliable service. Our story: My husband and I bought the same phone. My husband's broke (hinge or something). Despite the fact that this was a well-known defect Verizon refused to replace the phones. My husband took himself off the contract, paid the early departure fee, and then left me on. 6 months later, my phone broke (same place). I used a broken phone until the contract period was up and then we called to ask about a new phone promotion being offered. We were told we weren't eligible for some reason. So I canceled and changed carriers, and Verizon then told me that when my husband dropped off the contract, the contract essentially restarted with my name as the primary customer. They charged us ANOTHER fee for "breaking" that contract. What I found most appalling was that Verizon must make enough money that spending an incremental $50 (or whatever a new phone would have cost them) was clearly not worth retaining our business. $1,200/year or whatever annual service is vs. $50 for a new phone? We have met plenty of people who feel their dealings with Verizon reflected the same attitude. Verizon would have far fewer customers if the other carriers provided better coverage.
AT&T is the worst. Especially if you have a land line. They are rude, and I have been hung up on many times; and if they ever tell you they will take your name and number and someone will call you back-don't hold your breath! NO ONE - even if they are a supervisor or manager will ever call you back!
Dont go to the store for customer service moron! In the call centers we all hated the store reps (worked for AT&T for 6 months in a call center), bunch of commision working flakes with one or two actually good store reps in a town. If you have AT&T heres what to do, CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE and save yourself some time.
Heres a few simple rules if you call in that will help make sure your issue is resolved on the first call with AT&T:
1. Dont be an asshole. When you can in threatening us or trying to raise hell it makes it much harder to concentrate on the issue you called in with. We know that theres no way in hell we'll ever meet you in person and even if we did you wouldnt know who it was. So do the CSRs a favor and if you're angry TELL THEM but be as calm as possible and dont jump down the new rep's throat. CSRs do place notes on your account each call and can get you banned from calling customer service for the way you act.
2. They are NOT allowed to hang up on you for any reason (at least when i still worked there that was the rule), only supers and up can do so if I remember correctly, If a rep hangs up on you wait for 5 minutes, you may have been accidentally disconnected and when that happens reps are supposed to call you back. If you dont recieve a callback at all then call back yourself, be sure to let the rep you get know you just called and got disconnected and never called back by the rep you were talking to.
3. DO NOT DEMAND ANYTHING! Always ask instead. If you are polite you are more likely to get something than if you are screming at us to give it to you.
4. Speak clearly and describe any issues as best you can. We cant help if we dont know whats wrong.
5. There are a few tricks that can fix many phone issues, the most useful is the power cycle. Power down your phone, remove the battery for 30 seconds, put the pattery back in, power on the phone. This has been known to fix a wide range of things so always try this first unless you're calling for plans.
6. Dont be afraid to ask for a supervisor if you need to. If you have a disrespectful rep it's a perfect time.
7. BE PATIENT! If it takes a while to solve a problem remember that it'll take even longer if we have to deal with you screaming in our ears.
8. Remember, while the chances are low you always have the chance of gettting conected with a trainee. Please dont freak out if they are trainees, believe it or not, you can help them get better at their jobs. Usually trainees have a super nearby and can ask them if they need help.
9. Supers can take calls too. When you call in theres a slight chance the first person you speak to is a supervisor. Be respectful when you call because you never know who'll be on the other end.
10. Dont call from 5-8 pm, these times are the rush times and if you call then you best be ready to be on hold for while.
11. DO NOT CALL ON THE CELL WITH THE PROBLEMS! Most of the things that can be done to fix your phone on our end require you to be able to mess with the phone in question without having to end the call to do it.
12. Dont think asking for a super will get you what you want when it comes to money or hardware, usually it goes the other way around. The CSRs will usually give more than a super is willing to.
Twice during a week? Really? How is this going to give you a proper representation of the customer care service...
Do it again, with at least 10 volunteers for each carrier, that are different everyday that call for a whole week. 70 people per carrier, 70 different numbers, 70 different calls... I work in the wireless industry and honestly, although I now work for T-Mobile, there is no way At&t has bad customer support. I used to work for Best Buy Mobile for a few years, and I would have to make 3-4 calls during a 9 hour shift sometimes for various reasons. Verizon's 611 has pushed upgrades dates almost a month early to help customers who needed phones, At&t has CANCELED contracts because the customer claims they never signed one, and T-Mobile once even gave a business customer 5 Blackberry 8320's for free when they were $150 dollars, when there was an error preventing us from activating in the store.
The only one that has problems is Sprint. An hour and a half to activate an Aircard and then the person on the other end who doesn't speak English ends up activating one that is being shipped in the store?
Me Repeatedly "You understand I work for Best Buy, my agent code is BLAHBLAHBLAH, and I have a Aircard in my HANDS right? Here is the ESN..."
Sprint Idiot: "Tell him it will ship in 4-7 days!"
That situation happened twice! One time they even confused an add a line as pre-paying $150 dollars for the existing account. That one was a fun situation...