T-Mobile, Verizon & The Struggle With Customer Service

(Warning - this is a bit of a rant + a leadership lesson or two!)

Anyone ever have issues with their cell phone?  

Several months ago I experienced one of the biggest debacles ever with Verizon.

Without going into detail about how bad the screw up was - I was, needless to say, very open to switching to another cell phone provider.  

Enter John Legere and T-Mobile...

Someone mentioned to me I should consider switching to T-Mobile and John Legere (The President) even reached out to me via Twitter and asked for my email address so his office could contact me about the switch.  

His office and I exchanged emails and phone calls for a few weeks and could never connect with one another, and so the potential switch simply did not take place and I stayed with Verizon...

...and recently they (Verizon) really dropped the ball again (their cell service is great, it's just when you need customer service that it gets bad!)  

So, I reached out to T-Mobile (again) to see if we could figure out a solution.  

And, once again, phone and email tag happened, and even though I tried my best to communicate specific windows of time I was available - we were not able to connect.  

Finally, someone from T-Mobile's office emailed me to essentially say, "sorry we could not connect" and that I should just go to a local store and see the deals they offer.  

So I did...

...and basically it's going to cost me $1,000 to switch my account over (I mean, I am angry with Verizon...but I ain't THAT angry!)  

All of this leads to a couple of thoughts....

#1 - Is there actually a cell phone carried out there that cares about the customer anymore?  It seems to me if cell phone carriers spent less on advertising to new customers and more on caring about the customers they currently have, their profit margins could actually increase (because they cared enough to create raving fans!)    

#2 - The appearance of excellent customer service (John Legere's tweets) and actual customer service are two different things.  I don't think it's Mr. Legere's fault at all, no doubt he was sincere when he reached out; however, it doesn't seem there is a sufficient follow through system in place - which (either unfairly or not) reflects poorly on him.  (People don't remember what you say--they remember what you actually do!)  

At the end of the day...I'm pretty much a "free agent" when it comes to cell phone service and providers; however, I think cell phone carriers have gotten so large that the individuals simply do not matter anymore.  

Which is a HUGE lesson when it comes to leadership of any organization.  

I'm not against growth (in fact, I CELEBRATE it at every opportunity); however, growth at the expense of taking advantage of current customers (Verizon) or assuming customers want to pay $1,000 to start doing business with you are simply not the best ways to make a positive impact.  

Whenever possible a leaders responsibility is to make a large organization seem small--and the only way of doing that is through excellent customer service...

...something the cell phone industry is severely lacking these days.