Verizon vs Customers

The thing you need to know about Verizon is that it is not a big company, rather a bunch of smaller quasi-integrated companies.  I say quasi-integrated because they do not seem to talk to each other.  It is almost like a governmental agency in that it is difficult to communicate with and often dysfunctional.  Verizon's three main arms Phone, Internet and TV pretend to be a single company, but any time you need to do something you bump into the reality that they are islands with very flimsy bridges between them.  The website is maddeningly slow and unintuitive.  Go ahead and try to get your cellphone pictures downoaded to your PC -- you will see what I mean. 

Hmm, you say, A communications company that does not know how to communicate with its customers?  How can this be?  As an analogy, just think of the federal/state government.  They are always talking about "what the people want,"  but in fact the pols and their minions  that work in those organizations have little concern for their constuituents except during an election year.  They see the continuence their office as the raison d'etre of their activities, at the expense of ethical concerns for public needs.  This is how companies behave when they have a virtual captive market. 

I am not taking sides in the current labor dispute between the union and the company's management.  I hate both sides.  I hate the management because they have the clunkiest, least customer-friendly internet presence of any company I have the misfortune to deal with.  If you call them for help there are no human beings in any process that takes less than 30 minutes.  If you stay on the line and work your way through a bewildering array of autmated attendant menues you can finally talk to a person.  Who has the time or patience for that!
Why can't they get some decent web designers in to fix their unusable 1990's designed web pages?

I hate the union too, because they are willing to throw the innocent customers like you and me under the bus because they cannot settle the contract with management.  They are willing  to hold you and me  hostage to their demands for heavily subsidized health care, job protection for incompetent union members, and other benefits.  Why should we -- who pay our own health care costs and have no benefits - be sympathetic with a bunch of pampered union members, looking for more free stuff? 

Strike?  If I were Emperor, I would just find some people who wanted those jobs at the current wages and benefits.  I think there are a lot of them.

So a pox on all of them. 

You Can't Fix Stupid

Hello, Verizon.net Here's your survey. You Suck! Because if someone had sent email to my Verizon.net account in the past three days, it was not delivered to me. I just get a mindless set of error messages telling me that my password is wrong.

When I called the help line, some guy located in Bangladesh informs me in the most oblique English that "We are having issues with that server, which leads to you having issues accessing your email." Well, thanks but how about fixing the problem?

When I tried the online help desk, I get a message that the server is scheduled to be repaired 3pm today (probably pacific time zone).

If I wanted customers to think I was a reliable player in the email world, I would not have let a server remain out of service for three days. I would have Americans answering the helpdesk calls/emails from users in the USA.

They talk about businesses that are "too big to fail." Verizon is one of those companies that fails because it is too big. They mashed together a phone company an internet service provider and a TV service, but the only thing integrated is the billing. They suck when you have a problem. Getting a human being always requires a minimum twenty minute wait.

It's just stupid.

If I had a critical business need for the information I would have switched to another service provider. I may do that anyhow anyhow....
Here is your survey, Verizon.
Here is your sign...