Positive Experience with Verizon

Just a little different post this week. I want to share an experience I had with Verizon. I needed to purchase a MiFi hotspot (local internet issues) so I went into the Verizon app and ordered the device. The transaction had some weird behavior but Apple Pay seemed to have worked and I got an email indicating they would notify me when my order was ready for pickup. Good so far.

I happened to be awake at 3 am the next morning and checked my email and found another note from Verizon indicating that my payment had failed and I needed to correct it. In today's world I don't trust any email like that so I reached out to Verizon via their web chat to see if it was legit. Chat just didn't seem to be effective so I decided to try business iMessage.

Even at that time in the morning my initial message was answered almost immediately. The representative working with me located my order and started working to determine what the status was. They did determine that I needed to reprocess the payment but when I tried, it kept failing and eventually it locked me out due to too many attempts at payment. Sounds like a frustrating situation right? It was, especially at 3 am. But here is where it gets really good.

Finding an Alternate Solution

The representative suggested that since they could confirm the they payment hadn't gone through (even though there was an authorization on my card) that we just let the transaction expire, which it would do after three days without payment, and place a new order. After getting them to agree to cancel the order rather than just waiting (they provided me a confirmation), placed a new order with a different payment method. Sure enough, it went through and I could see the order and the rep confirmed that the payment did go through this time.

Thanking Me

At this point I was very grateful that the order was back on track and I expressed my thanks. The representative then replied and thanked me for being patient and allowing them to serve me even with the issues. Not something I really expected.

If the mifi was being emailed, this could have been the end of the story, but I had asked for in-store pick up knowing I would absolutely need it the next day. Since we are in the middle of various stages of social distancing and pandemic response, I was a little concerned about how the whole pick up would go.

Order Pick Up

The store opened at 10 am local time. At about 10:30, I received an email indicating that my order was ready to pick-up. The email also suggested I call ahead and confirm hours prior to going in due to the pandemic. I tried doing that but the wait at the call center was pretty long. So I checked the app and they indicated the store was taking appointments. So I grabbed one.

When I got to the store, I could see a sign on the sidewalk that said please wait here for assistance. There was an employee right there with an iPad to check customers in. He was wearing a mask and the other employee that walked in the store while I was there also wore one. While he checked in another customer, I waited the sidewalk (about 10 feet away from the other customer).

Once it was my turn, he asked what I was there for. I told him I had an order for pickup and he looked it up. Then he helped me pull up a bar code on my phone and while I was doing that, he went in the store and came back with a bag that had my order.b He scanned the bar code and I was done.

So let me summarize - I was at the Verizon location less than 5 minutes. I never went inside the store. I interacted with one employee that work a mask and no one else. And when I got home, the device was working perfectly.

Satisfied customer - absolutely!

Summary

There are a few reasons I wanted to write about this.

First, cell providers are notorious for bad customer service and not being responsive to customer needs. I have had service with all the major ones at some point in my life and I can attest to many bad experiences. This was one situation where I really needed things to go well and with the first payment not going through, this could have been bad.

That's the second reason, which is that the Verizon customer service rep found a way to turn a difficult situation into a positive one. I really needed the device to continue working and they made it happen.

Third, how they handled the need for social distancing and precautions was pretty much perfect. I can't think of anything major they could have done differently to help me feel more comfortable doing business at that location.

Lessons for Leaders and Businesses

1 - Provide multiple ways for customers to get help.

2 - Design systems, processes and cultures to find solutions and make it easy for customers to do business with you. Empower employees to problem solve and to make sure customers are taken care of. Make sure employees can turn potentially negative situations into positive ones.

3 - Be responsive to changing needs. I'm sure Verizon modified it's in-store procedures to keep business flowing during the pandemic. But this is a great example of how business and customer needs can align to create a win-win situation.

Those are just three lessons and I'm sure there are others. But kudos to #verizonwireless for this great experience.