It’s like Verizon is trying to lose customers

Verizon has a problem: it’s losing customers at an incredible rate, and it’s trying to fix its problems in ways that further drive its users away. After T-Mobile’s recent controversies with the price hikes and the T-Life app, you’d think that this is the perfect time for Verizon to swoop in and snatch some customers away.

Instead, online forums are filled with complaints against the company, and it’s not hard to see why. For example, Verizon customers are finding charges on their bills that they never asked for. This may be due to representatives trying to earn an extra commission, but it’s likely a result of Verizon’s AI tools that even its own employees dislike.

Verizon is having a pricing crisis

A while ago, I mentioned that Verizon is having a pricing crisis. Looking at what the company’s customers are seeing every day, it truly feels like there is a lot of mismanagement going on over at Verizon.

While some customers are being offered killer discounts, others are arbitrarily picked for price hikes that make them consider alternatives. As far as the company’s users have been able to tell, there is no rhyme or reason to these discounts and price increases.

Most people’s best guess is that Verizon randomly offers discounts to retain existing customers. There’s very likely some truth to this, as we’ve seen the carrier offer pretty good deals to people who told customer service that they were thinking of switching to another network.

But there has to be a better way to go about trying to keep your user base.

Throw things at a wall and see what sticks

Both T-Mobile and AT&T — Verizon’s largest competitors — are performing better. Verizon’s strategy of offering steep discounts often works, and users say that they’ll stick around for the time being simply because of how cheap it is. However, it’s still not enough to maintain growth.

Verizon’s aforementioned AI tools are another way that the company is experimenting with streamlining its services. These tools are supposed to help its employees speed up their work, and provide better service to Verizon’s customers. Except, said employees have to constantly battle these tools just to be able to do their job without being hindered.

And now we have almost concrete evidence that these tools have directly contributed to inflated bills: a surefire way to drive customers away. Anecdotal reports from Verizon representatives only corroborate the claim that these tools add extras to a user’s bill without asking anyone first.

It’s not all bad, but it could be so much better

There’s a reason so many people still stick with Verizon: it has extensive coverage across the U.S. and usually provides awesome service. Verizon is also partnering with AST SpaceMobile to bring satellite cell service to its users in dead zones, which is an excellent initiative. However, what the company has been doing recently is, in my opinion, a recipe for guaranteed disaster.

Verizon is already losing hundreds of thousands of users to its rivals. It’s time for the company to get its act straight and devise a concrete plan of action. To continue to do nothing except half-hearted attempts at solving non-existent problems is to give T-Mobile and AT&T victory on a silver platter.

If I were someone high up at Verizon, the first thing I’d do would be to make discounts and price hikes make sense for the average customer. Be completely transparent about why someone might be seeing their bill go up. Second, prioritize customer service so that both employees and customers leave satisfied instead of enraged.

Yeah, that’s easier said than done, and T-Mobile has messed up in that department too. But that’s all the more reason for Verizon to get its act together and step up when it has a golden opportunity to do so.

Else, it’s basically trying to lose customers.

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