Here I am, working from home for the third consecutive day, mostly due to Verizon wireless. I’m scaling the walls here, ready to go crazy because I’m waiting for a package from them.
Last week, I decided to take advantage of my cell phone free-agency and look at an opportunity to break out to a new cell phone plan. I’ve been a moderately happy customer with Cingular, but I’ve really been itching at looking at either a Blackberry or a Smartphone that could surf the Internet. I really miss not being able to check sports scores and movie times, and given that I only check my email every 30 seconds while I’m working, I should be able to check my mail every 15 seconds by my phone (j/k).
So I was looking and as it turns out, Verizon has the best company discount for Smartphones. I was especially interested in the Palm Treo 650, which has received many decent reviews and is one of the favorites out there. Last Friday I made the leap, purchased the phone and have now been anxiously waiting for it to arrive.
Now, a week later, I have to admit that I’m a little annoyed with Verizon. I’m not frustrated, I’m not angry – but just annoyed. I made the request mid-day Friday, so I was hoping that the latest they’d ship it out to me was Monday. Immediately after I placed the request I got a confirmation email which included the typical things "Thanks for purchasing blah blah blah… your request has been sent to us blah blah blah… subject to credit approval blah blah… if we need any more information we will contact you blah…" What I took from that message was "Don’t call use, we’ll call you". Ok, great.
The weekend comes and goes, nothing from Verizon. Monday passes, nothing from Verizon. Towards the end of Tuesday I was beginning to get anxious and emailed the support address, asking for a status of my order. I thought it was weird not to get anything – at least a shipping confirmation (and hopefully a tracking number).
It wasn’t until the end of Wednesday when I finally got an email from Verizon. It made no mention of my pending support request, but it did inform me that my phone did get shipped that day, and gave me some instructions on how to activate my service and port my number. However, there was no tracking number – just a statement that they sent it through FedEx (glad it’s not UPS) and that it will take 2-3 business days.
I’m thinking to myself "Hopefully 2 business days, but we’ll see". Not a bad response from Verizon, I wish I would have received a tracking number, but oh well. But then I get two other emails: one from the DMB Warehouse fan club, telling the Kansas City tickets got shipped out (and gave me a tracking number); the other from Targus informing me that my cousin’s backpack (for her graduation) got shipped out as well.
Thursday arrives, and I had every intention of going to the office, but a series of morning meetings kept me at home throughout the morning. Luckily I was home because I got a knock on my door and the DMB tickets arrived (awesome). After my initial joy, my next thought turned to Verizon, thinking "Well if Warehouse can get me stuff within a day, where’s Verizon with my phone?". Later, Bethany offered the suggestion that because Warehouse sent an envelope rather than a box, they’re easier to sort and could get here faster. Unfortunately her hypothesis was proven wrong when we visited my mom and saw that the Targus backpack had also arrived – talk about fast service.
So shifting back to Verizon – here I am waiting for my phone, hoping that it’ll get here today and I won’t need to wait until next week to receive it. Again, I’m not mad at Verizon, but I think I’ve really missed out on starting off on the right foot with a new wireless provider. I’ve heard from friends that their customer service isn’t that great – I just hope this isn’t a preview of what’s to come.
Now I am working away up in my home office, with the music turned off and paranoid about every sound I hear – wondering if someone’s knocking at the door. Getting a wireless doorbell for my apartment doesn’t seem like such a bad idea…