I find Verizon to be the most annoying company to deal with. I get calls and reps in my store monthly. Long time happy wireless customer. The corporate greed that does not mind sending annoying pushy reps to someone who is already a loyal customer is ridiculous. If you need to use aggressively pursue people there is something wrong with the product or service that you offer.
Andrew A
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| Verizon Fios and Door-to-Door Sales: A Most Unholy Matrimony |
| Commentary - Technology |
| Written by neildittmar |
| Wednesday, 04 February 2009 16:31 |
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The title is not a joke or misprint. Verizon, a major east coast telecom provider, is actively utilizing the very much outdated tactic of door-to-door sales in an effort to bolster acceptance of its latest high-tech product offerings. The only thing stranger than the concept itself is the way the folks contracted are going about carrying out their sales mission. Think dirty middle-aged guy in a white van circling an elementary school with candy and video games in tow. Got it? Now take it down a half-notch and you'll have the Verizon FIOS "door-to-door" experience in a nutshell. To be clear, the tactics these creeps are using go beyond the irritating "cold call." They even go beyond the dreaded hard-sell that no consumer wants to deal with, particularly in this day, age and state of the economy. Their methods are closer to someone casing your property in hopes of finding an opportune time to rip off the joint. Think I'm just one of those irrate privacy freaks that calls the police anytime someone sets foot on my lawn? Here's our story, judge for yourself. Yesterday an unmarked car unexpectedly pulls up to the house. Two men get out, also with no identifying apparel, and proceed to knock on our door several times. I happened to not be home at that time and my wife being the smart woman she is refused to answer the door. Naturally, she had no clue who these folks were, why they were there, or what their intentions were. They eventually left. Needless to say, I became more than a little concerned over the situation. Today, the same vehicle and men returned. My wife happened to be outside when they pulled up so she was pretty much forced to conversate with them. It turns out that they are from Verizon (or at least they said they were, who could really know?) and they want to sell us FIOS Internet/TV/Phone service. This isn't the first time we've had a door-to-door FIOS rep come to our house, so the fact it happened again was particularly annoying. My wife and I have already had the discussion and decided that for various reasons (cost, feasibility, etc.) we weren't going to sign up... at least not yet. That's when the hard-sell was effectively on. The one man begins asking my wife questions like how many TVs, telephones, and computers we have. I'm not sure what this has to do with them selling us their service (is it priced by device now?), but I guess it could be considered relevant... if she didn't already say "no, thank you." To be fair, this line of questioning could also be construed as someone trying to figure how much "stuff" we have in an effort to determine whether our house would be best to knock over. Initially giving the benefit of the doubt, the line of questioning gets stranger from there. Things like "Do you guys have a home network?", "What do you guys do on the internet?", and "What kind of television shows do you watch?" plummet the conversation further away from "sales" and more towards "casing" or "stalking." The question that really crossed the line came after my wife explained (for the second time) that her and I already decided that FIOS was not for us right now. This was met with "Does your husband work? When does he come home?" That effectively did it. I immediately called Verizon and, after confirming that they even had a door-to-door sales initiative, requested that our address be taken off the list. To their credit, it was confirmed to me by a rep that our address will be removed from those they distribute to their third-party service providers who perform these stalker-type sales. The main issue is that this type of practice is going on in the first place. Apparently I'm not alone in my disgust for Verizons throwback sales initiative, as a 10 second Google search will reveal countless other horror stories, including the company suspending the practice in Deleware due to one of their contracted salesman masturbating in somebodys yard. Is this type of bad publicity and a general irritation to customers really worth it to Verizon? The aforementioned incident happened over 6 months ago, so I suppose the answer is yes... as long as you don't live in Deleware. Seriously, door-to-door sales were something companies did 30 years ago (maybe) in order to promote their products to potential customers. The stereotypical vacuum cleaner salesman who stormed in and dumped crap on your living room floor comes to mind. What Verizon is failing to realize is that times are undoubtedly different now. Privacy concerns are on the rise and not a day goes by when you don't hear about some robbery or home invasion where an unannounced doorstop visit was the catalyst. In fact, every other company I deal with has sent information to me stating the contrary of what Verizon is doing. That is, a representative from the company will never arrive at your door without the customer either scheduling an appointment or being contacted ahead of time. The reasons for this are painstakingly obvious. What part doesn't Verizon understand? Are potential sales of the service more important than customers feelings of comfort, safety and well-being in their own homes and neighborhoods? Verizon isn't being "traditional" or innovative here. All they're serving to do is alienate current customers in an awful attempt at securing additional business from them. When you really think about it, the approach makes absolutely zero sense. Like many other large corporations operating today, they need to get a handle on average, middle-class reality... not this personal jet flying, limo riding, mansion owning, lavish lifestyle living mentality that I'm sure is an everyday occurence to the higher ups making these poor decisions. To put it bluntly they need to get a clue, and while they're at it, they need to stop giving out their customers personal information to third parties who only serve to creep my family and countless others out while they're hocking Verizons wares. Verizon has already suspended it's door-to-door sales in Deleware based on the aforementioned indecency incident. How about killing it in all the other states they do business as well and making everyone rest a bit easier... or does someone have to pleasure himself (or worse) in my yard too?
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WOW ALL businesses make all there money from advertisement I think it's safe to say that you were at fault: first you dont believe anything they say but they say there from verison and all of a sudden you believe them 100% you know in full they wern't. when have you ever gone to verison and nobody in there was in uniform?? what your doing is just giving verison a bad name