Phone Upgrades Are a Pain on Verizon Contract
Phone Upgrades Are a Pain on Verizon Contract
Gotcha! The Verizon 2 year phone contract leaves me out in the cold – Phone Upgrades Are a Pain on Verizon Contract
I am one of the many real estate agents using Verzon as my cell phone supplier. Many of us chose Verizon because the coverage is excellent throughout most of the US. Real estate agents HAVE to be able o send and receive calls, text messages and email. It is the lifeblood of our business. So most of us select our wireless vendor based on coverage.
I have been a Verizon customer for a bunch of years. I can not recall the exact number but safely 12 or 14 years. Every two years I sign a new contract for cell phones. I get a new phone (actually it was 4 of them last time as I am on a family plan) and then I am a captive customer for two more years.
As soon as the cell phones go out of warranty, our family usually has a couple of cell phone “failures” and we need a replacement.
Verzon makes this an awfully painful experience. My daughter Hannah had a failure on her Droid Ally (a particularly poorly made phone by the way) and we needed a replacement. When we called in we learned that the phone was out of warranty by a month or so. Then we learned an replacement phone would cost us an arm and a leg. And if we wanted to upgrade to an iPhone we could shell out $650.00.
We did not feel like shelling out $650 for a new phone right now. There is college tuition to pay and Tim’s truck needs some work done and we are replacing some fixtures in a couple of bathrooms, etc, etc.
What can you do? We went back to the old “standby” replacement program. My husband Tim started searching Ebay for a replacement. Could have picked up an exact replacement for less than $25.00. But, the phone was a pice of you know what so Tim snagged an HTC Droid Incredible for $110.00. Much better phone than my daughter was using and only a couple of months old.
Hmmm. Next April we are going to think hard about whether or not to renew the Verizon contract. If I had to give an answer right now, I am thinking another wireless providor might have a leg up on Verizon.
There is a lesson here for real estate. While spending hundreds of dollars trying to grab one new customer, you sometimes forget to service the clients you already have. Part of marketing is making sure you are providing the best possible service to existing clients.