Verizon Wireless re-announces Visual Voice Mail, not free anymore

Verizon Wireless re-announces Visual Voice Mail, not free anymore

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Published on: 11 August, 2008 by Nanko Rusev

Verizon Wireless re-announces Visual Voice Mail, not free anymore

After VZW showed and hid the information on its Visual Voice Mail service, it now reveals new details…

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41.
btw, if you work for a "premium retailer" you do not work for verizon wireless. you work for franchise crap and are the bane of every real VZW employee's existance. Please dont be too proud of that.
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45.
yea you dont know how much it pisses me off when some of those auth dealers screw with customers and ruin thier VZW experience. yes its an experience! one that everyone must experience
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46.
I work for one of those "premium retailers" and I can assure you that we provide some of the best service to our customers in the area. Most of the people come into our store complaining about the corporately owned locations and how they feel like a number there. And btw, I know it's a franchise. I also know that I get paid better commission than the people I know who work for the actual Verizon Wireless stores, and I'm not under stress to meet quotas in order to keep my job.
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47.
what no quotas? where u work? how u get paid? imagine if i didnt have a quota....the people i could help the possibilities would be endless
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69.
I am a VZW customer. I choose to deal with a local authorized dealer instead of visiting the corporate store. I did have to visit the corporate store twice recently to try to have my phone flashed so I could get VVM. When they realized I wasn't buying anything I was blown off immediately, telling me things like "its at least a 2 hour wait, maybe you should come back another time" and "um its not working". Are they serious? Whats not working!? What other company pushes a loyal customer right out of the door so quickly without offering a hand? My experience at the corporate store has never been anything short of a nightmare, and I will choose to work with my dealer any day of the week, unless, as in this particular instance, it is impossible. Here's hoping third times a charm.
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83.
I am a technician in a corporate store. In other words I don't work for VZW but i work in their corporate store. Now, when it comes to the new Voyager software flash, it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to flash on a brand new phone out of the box. On a phone that has information on it like ringtones, and text messages, and contacts that the system has to back and and store it can take much much longer. Couple that with the fact that most stores have a maximum of 4 flash boxes(mine only has 2) and there are thousands of other customers in the area that may need software flashes(we do on average 20-30 software flashes a day) There may be a 2 hour wait before we can even get your phone onto the software machine. And yes, there are spurts when the LGNPST program that is used for flashing begins to crash and FRY phones. We don't like to fry a customer's phone because it becomes a $400 paperweight that flashes the Verizon logo. That is an issue with LG not VZW and one that VZW has to wait on LG to fix. The majority of corporate stores care about their customers a lot more than people seem to think. That's why VZW incorporated the NPS system. Net Promoter Score. It allows a customer to rate their experience on a scale of 0-10. And do you know what scores are acceptable for VZW employees? a 9 or a 10. An 8 just doesn't cut it. So, if you have a poor experience at a corporate store, ask for the web address for the survey and go fill it out. The manager at the store gets a report every single day and is required to call the people that don't give his/her reps a good score and find out how he/she can improve the customer experience for the customer. And more often than not an authorized dealer will do anything they can to get a sale. Lying to customers is not unheard of from an agent. I've seen agents sell customers Refurbished phones and use their New Every 2 credit during the purchase and then the customer brings the phone in for service and guess what. There is no warranty cause the phone was refurbished. In that situation, our store manager did what it took for the customer. We got them a warranty replacement and ate the cost of it. So for those of you who want to whine and moan about your experience, I apologize if the store is one of the few that doesn't care, but for the rest of you... you can't have everything you want, I'm sorry to say but some things do take time and money and sometimes computer systems crash and its beyond our control. So lets all just try to work together here to come up with a good resolution for each problem and accept the fact that sometimes things can't be exactly how we want them. Please... it would make my job much easier if you wouldn't assume just because we say there is going to be a 2 hour wait that we're just brushing you off. Fact is there is probably a good reason for that 2 hour wait cause I surely only want to get 10's when people do surveys on me. I don't like the store manager giving me hell for that 7 I got the other day because I was the only technician in the store and the individual had to wait for 5 minutes on a VERY comfortable bench until I could get to them. And our benches are incredibly comfortable I could sleep on them.
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91.
You have benches? How nice! In the corporate store I go to there are no benches, or reps who give a damn about their customers. Every time I have had to visit the store they automatically assume I am an idiot that simply doesn't know how to use my device. Thats in the rare case that I can get them to acknowledge that I even exist! I have never seen a store full of employees intentionally avoiding eye contact with customers, its really unbelievable. Any customer can understand a busy store and a long wait, however an explanation or a suggestion of a solution would show that the employees care, and therefore make the experience 1000% more tolerable. Whether it is poor management in that particular store (1 Smithaven Mall, Lake Grove, NY) on Long Island, or a poor corporate culture, I truly believe these employees actually go out of there way to make customers feel unwelcome and give them a miserable experience so that they turn around and walk out of the store and never return, because hey, it might make them have to do a little less work.
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50.
Verizon isnt "requiring" you to have it on your line in order to have access to its network. Its simple. If you can afford it and want it, then get it. If your to hard up for 3 bucks extra then stop complaining and get off the welfare.
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51.
NOBODY MAKES ANY ONE BUY CELL PHONES OR BUY ALL THAT COMES WITH IT!!! COME ON !! Its simple if you want to use something, you have to pay for it. I know those cell phone towers are so free and the electric is free too. Come on kids sprint verizon, att and others run on the same business models everyone else does. Who bought starbucks coffe or stopped at Mc D's or who bought there kids xbox360 ps 3200. Yes these are dumb points but for those who are thinking about what I am saying good for you and now go do something about it.
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56.
I agree with you. We should do something about it. I believe that as a consumer, I should be smart enough to know when a service is being overpriced. That's just what smart consumers DO! I believe that as a consumer, customer satisfaction is important to maintaining a customer base, not only as a point source of revenue, but also a source of advertisement. This is a service that I will boycott because, despite my loyalty to Verizon, I believe that they are overcharging for this service that could otherwise be used as a marketing tool to attract new customers to buy more plans and make bigger profits than making this service cost $2.99/month to its existing customer base.
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68.
Hey look a company that charges for a service that they provide. A service that is purchased by consumers on their own free will. A service that they charge $35.88 per year before taxes. Course there are the alternatives of Youmail and the offerings of other carriers, however those who choose to have this service decided that it would be convenient to have full control over their voicemails rather than dialing, skipping and using their much valued minutes to listen to their messages. Those who choose to have this service and pay for it, taking the $35.88 hit, are only different from the rest of the crowd because they chose to use it and pay for it.

Is it really fair to those people who are willingly paying for a service, only to have the same exact company choose to not charge a customer with the same exact standing simply because they "didn't want to pay"?

Personally, I believe when more phones have the software to utilize the application, Verizon will add VVM to their Premium Plans. For now, all they are trying to do is offer the same features of other wireless companies to remain competitive.

I don't believe any average joe is in the position to dictate what Verizon should and should not do. If we were, we would not be average joe's, we would be sitting in Lowell McAdam's chair right now. There is a reason he has his job.

When the choice has to be made by the consumer to buy it or not, it is their choice to make and it is not forced upon them.

Now, if Verizon forced everyone to get the application and charged us the $2.99/month without our consent, then I would have problems.

Simply put, it's a service with a price. If I want it, I will get it. If I don't want it, I will not get it.
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73.
I need a car in order to get to work and back. I have ten thousand dollars, will you give me this Mercedes AMG?
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75.
That's just a poor analogy... I have the voyager and paid it's price tag (after the deductions from the 2 year contract). Rueing the fact that VVM is charged $2.99/month is MORE like Mercedes charging you $2.99/month for you have a remote key to unlock your doors without having to turn the key... Now think about that, with so many other options that are given to the customer for free (as pointed out by previous posts), why should this be any different?
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82.
and your analogy is just as poor. When you buy a vehicle, they don't give you all the extras at the base price like the remote key. You pay extra for things like that. That's why my car doesn't have power locks, or windows. I mean they give me a radio and a speedometer and heater, and doors, so I guess they should include every other bell and whistle for the same price too.
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93.
LMAO I love how you're picking apart the original response I dont think that was the point which both of you completely missed.
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76.
For those who know about YOUMAIL, does anyone know if those text messages that they send you incur a charge? Or perhaps take up any of my 250 allotted text messages per month?
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89.
I just canned Verizon because of their nickel and diming and declining call quality. They used to be good where I live but now I get so much static and dropped calls, I had to get rid of them. I don't even use the VVM feature on my iPhone, if I want to hear my voicemail I just call it.
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