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Derision Wireless
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Derision Wireless
Copyright © February 1, 2014 Douglas W Jerving.
All Rights Reserved.
Dealt with the Verizon Nazis today, for the last time!
Hooray. My contract is done. I owe them nothing. I am free. But....
I want to keep using the Droid Razr. I love this phone. I just hate the cost of doing
business with Verizon. I have found a provider of nearly the same services for a third
of the price. But I need a new blank SIM card so I can set it up on the new server I
am migrating to. Since the Razr is proprietary to Verizon it has to be a new blank
Verizon 4G LTE card. My goal was to get the new card and set up service on the new
provider by the end of the day.
I go into the Verizon Store in Bayshore mall about 11 this morning looking forward to
getting the new SIM. Pleasant hellos are exchanged. I say "I'm looking for a new SIM card."
"Do you have the phone with you so we can register it?" "No, I just want to buy a new
clean card." The sixteen year old CSR (alright, maybe 19) says she can't sell me a card
without assigning it to a phone. "Let me speak to your manager".
She turns me over to a seventeen year old squeaky blond (okay, maybe 22 or 23). Her excuse:
"We would have to remove it from our inventory". Well, duh! That's why you are in business!
To remove items from your inventory by selling them to me! Apparently that part of business
went over her head. So she copped the same excuse as the sixteen year old: "We can't sell the
card unless it's assigned to a device."
I told her I could buy the card online for half the price I would pay them if necessary. I
would have to wait a few days, so I was willing to put up with the higher price for the
convenience of getting the card from her store today.
Again, the lack of any serious understanding of how business works, or of any concept of
customer relations being more important than corporate rules rose up in her like some hideous
little zombie-slave indentured to its Verizon Master. The Stoopid came out, effectively ending
any possibility of maintaining me as a present or future loyal user.
She says "Well I guess you'll just have to buy it on line." What? I am dumb-founded! Not a
word of conciliation, like "Let me see if there is some other way I can help you with this."
Or at least offering to discuss the possibilities with her regional manager and get back to me,
or anything else that might have allowed Verizon (her Employer!) to maintain some sort of
beneficial relationship with me (her Customer).
When I was running my own company years ago, the one thing I came to understand is that it
costs far more to gain a new customer than it does to maintain the customers you already have.
Moral: Do everything in your power to make the customers who are already on board happy and you
will most likely keep them, and they will bring in new clientele on their own, because they
believe in you. They know that your mission is to serve them.
Little Blondie had none of these simple rules of good business instilled in her head (or heart
for that matter). As far as she was concerned, the customer is just another meat puppet walking
through a revolving door. There would be another meatball rolling in when I rolled out. As I
turned to the door I let her know "That's exactly why I'm leaving Verizon."
Her dour one word zombiotic response: "Okay."
Not even "I'm sorry we couldn't help you with this. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
I guess she realized she had already roped her own neck. (Maybe not. After all, we are talking
about zombies. Aren't we?)
An hour later I bought a brand new clean SIM card online from someone who cares about her customers'
satisfaction. Her rating and reviews on Ebay proves it. It will arrive next Wednesday with free
shipping. I paid six bucks! Top that Derision Wireless!
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Doug Jerving is the publisher of the NewEdisonGazette.com. You may contact him at
dje@newedisongazette.com.
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