Verizon One-Bill
Verizon’s One-Bill service makes several basic mistakes in delivering customer value. The plan is intended to combine the billing for multiple phone services under a single bill. It sounds good, but the potential for aggravation can easily outweigh the benefits of writing fewer checks.
Mistake #1
One-Bill complicates resolving billing issues. The billing cycles of the services combined under One-Bill are not synchronized and the billing details are not brought together under one customer service representative’s control. When you call the customer service number on your bill you’ll eventually get connected to representative “A” who will tell you that the problem has to do with a specific service and will route you to representative “B” at that service. B will offer to review the details with you, but you’ll discover that the bill closing dates and amounts don’t correspond with what you see on your One-Bill statement. This is because One-Bill pretends your billing cycle closes on say the 1st, while your actual cell phone service billing cycle closes on the 16th. Given the typical 26 page paper bill, you’ll have to retreat to discussing the billing problem in the abstract. Good luck getting closure that way. Maybe someday they’ll send the bill as a spreadsheet.
Mistake #2
Say you have a family cell phone service with multiple phones and a home phone under One-Bill. Now say you miss a payment and Verizon decides to block service until you pay the bill. What happens? The One-Bill folks block your out-going cell phone service while leaving your home phone working. So you call to restore service but the wireless representative tells you that the block comes from the home phone people and they can’t lift it themselves. How ironic, the people with control block the other service while leaving their own intact! After bouncing between various reps, you’ll be promised that service will be restored. Don’t believe it. Be persistent and stay on the phone with them until your service is really restored. We got promises ranging from 1 hour to 2 days. After the third session of calls on the second day the service was finally re-enabled while we waited.
Mistake #3
The only phone number Verizon will call under One-Bill is your home phone. They claim this is for legal reasons! If you’re like me and use your cell phone for most calls and only check your home phone messages infrequently - or never, when traveling - this is not the best way to be informed of billing issues.
Mistake #4
When you decide to cancel your One-Bill service (to keep your cell phone service simple and manageable) and switch to Vonage for your home phone service ($30/month for unlimited US & Canadian calls) you may discover that you can’t transfer your existing home phone number. Guess what? It’s the One-Bill service on the account that’s preventing the transfer. Cancel One-Bill first. Wait for Verizon to bubble the change through their system. Then transfer the phone number.
Why are these mistakes? Because any layered service should not make existing services more complicated or un-manageable. It must not be more complicated to resolve billing issues. It must not be more complicated to restore service and a problem with one service should not propagate to affect other services.
Hopefully Verizon is working to improve this situation. After all, Verizon’s motto is “we never stop working for you”. Boy does that sound tired when sitting on hold with the 10th service representative…