By Livia Bergovoy

This customer spends hours dealing with these super nice customer service reps. The Customer Service Reps (“CSR”) are just another cog in a very broken, very intricate clock.

So when after hours on the phone to resolve an issue, the AUTOMATED voice called to request a few (MORE) minutes of my time, I have begged off these last few times. Why? Because the survey questions don’t offer the opportunity whereby one can express the crux of the issue: If the clock were not broken, we would not need to spend these hours with customer service (nice as they are and sometimes even as competent as they are).

First a little background and then the most recent broken clock scenario.

Background: Verizon is my wireless phone, land line and DSL (Internet) service provider. I’ve gone paperless years ago and enjoy logging into my accounts on line to look at my bills, service plans, and so on. A while back I decided to combine my three services into one paperless bill. Every month Verizon sends me an email with information about my next bill – how much it is and when it is due. There is also a link to the URL (page) where I can log in with a user name and password to access my accounts.

So when this month the paperless bill notification email arrived and the amount was different (higher) than expected, I logged into “My Verizon” to check the details of the bill, only one of my three Verizon services was accessible.

Here began the most recent broken clock scenario:

Last month and previously the “My Verizon” login took me to the expected URL  – to all three of my Verizon services. Today the same login sent me to a page where only my wireless account was accessible; my Verizon land line and DSL accounts were nowhere to be found.

Called Verizon, on my Verizon land line. Can’t call from my Verizon cellphone while in our apartment. That’s another broken clock scenario, but let us not get distracted…

Let us not forget the goal; it is to get to the paperless (online) version of the bill. It has required talking to numerous pleasant CSRs. At one juncture, to cut to the chase, I asked to have my three bills split and was advised that in order to split the three bills, I would be charged $100. I wish I would have recorded that – I can’t even believe I heard that, and it’s just an hour later. My protest got me connected to a different department and another CSR, where I attempted to get my paperless condition back to old-fashioned paper. After all, my main reason for calling about an hour and a half ago was to see my bill.

Skip to the 100th bullet point… I’m begging to have my paperless bill emailed. Lo and behold this fifth? (lost count) CSR somehow got me logged in. I could access my bill.

The Verizon website is abysmally buggy and horribly un-user-friendly — it being one of the many proverbial clocks intricately broken.

Sprint Broken Clock Scenario:

Sprint Services Customer like Bull Services Cow:

OK, counted to 10… thousand… and took as many deep breaths. Now I will tell you my Sprint Story. I spent more than two hours with Sprint. Was transfered from one to the next for a total of about 6 people. I say about, because I didn’t start keeping track right away, so there could have been eight. I wonder if Sprint realizes that they spent about $10,000 to try to chisel $64.60 out of me. Now, as I think of it, I do wonder if customer service is chiseling Sprint out of hourly wages at least. They are keeping me on the phone. Started out talking to English speaking support people.

Let me back up: Late November I called Sprint and spoke to a saleslady who spoke a schooled, if limited English. She apologized for the bad connection (she was on a voice/over/IP connection). She promised me that I would get great service with the phone of my choice. She promised me that if I am not completely satisfied, I could return the phone within 30 days and get 100 percent refund. She reassured me over and over that I would be absolutely satisfied. A day and a half later, I received my new Sprint smartphone. By now, my credit card was charged $320.99. The mobile/smartphone was beautiful, but alas, it could only drop calls in my house, so I called Sprint from my landline and was told that a envelope with instructions to return the phone and a full refund would take place. The envelope arrived five days later, and I sent the phone back. A few days after that, I got an email saying that I will receive $299.39 credit. By January 2nd, I received a refund to my credit card in the amount of $256.39 which is $64.80 short of the 100 percent refund.

So that’s when my Sprint CS saga began. First I told my dilemma to an English speaking person, and two hours later I was connected to someone (the sixth seventh or eighth rep) over VOIP where every other syllable was chopped out and there was a five second delay between me and him. At that point communication was a total failure – the CSR continued talking — syllables chopping toward my end. So I called my credit card company and was told to deduct the $64.60 from my next payment and they would handle it. P.S., my card was credited with the $64.60 at the end of January.

All’s not well that ends well. I wasted hours of my valuable time to get the promised refund. There are so many broken parts to the Sprint Clock that I stopped telling time.