I recently ordered Verizon Business DSL for my flower shop in Boston. The first sign of trouble was that I received a bunch of emails requiring me to confirm my order. However, I could not follow the instructions because it required the DSL to first be operational. When I called, I was sent into a customer service loop in which none of the reps I spoke with could figure out why I received the emails in the first place. Eventually they told me just to ignore them. So, fast forward to two days ago. A tech arrived, spent three hours at the store blocking my computers and phones, only to go away saying that he couldn't get it to work. This morning, more techs appeared, spent another three hours, still couldn't get the DSL operational on my computers and somehow destroying the network connections that I had set up between my server and front register. When I pointed out that these connections were no longer working and gave the tech the original settings, asking him to please restore the system to its original state, the tech simply left. So now, no DSL, no working computers, no ability to ring in customers.

I called Verizon tech support and let them know what had occured, and asked them to please send a tech back out to restore my computers to their original state. For six and a half hours, and I repeat, SIX and a HALF HOURS, no breaks, I was shuffled back and forth between different customer service reps and was told that their techs wouldn't know how to fix the thing they had messed up and that I would have to pay for someone to come repair their mistake. Several times, I thought I had reached someone who would help me, only to be disconnected and have to go through the whole thing again. After an entire day of non-stop frustration I still have no resolution to this issue and am about done with the pitiful excuse for customer service given to me by Verizon. One guy, supposedly a senior tech support agent, actually told me that he had no superior I could speak with, and that there was no customer service department to whom I could complain, then hung up on me. Mostly, Verizon seems to have very ineffectual phone systems, as none of the reps seem to know how to retrieve a call on hold without accidentally switching it to another department or hanging up on their client.

This is the single worst customer service experience I have ever had, bar none. I am horrified that a company marketing itself to businesses doesn't seem to have techs that know how to work with installation of DSL on an existing network, and even more horrified that there is no avenue to resolve issues that does not involve endless voice mail loops and surly, unresponsive customer service agents. This said, I did have a few very nice agents I spoke with during my day of Verizon nightmare, but none of them could actually do anything for me. One guy told me that if I threatened to drop the service he could transfer me to the department in charge of keeping customers with Verizon, and the person I spoke with there said they would get Geeksquad out for me to get my computers working again, but then, once again, I got disconnected when the Geeksquad rep was searching for the right tech to send out to me. They did not call me back, and neither did Verizon, so once again, the endless phone tree, the endless holds. I called back, and I called back again. Finally I got another guy who sounded genuinely interested in helping me, but who seemed to have his hands tied. He said he would speak with his supervisor and get back to me in the morning. By this time I had wasted the entire day on this seemingly simple problem, and felt utterly defeated.

I sincerely hope that the one guy who said he would call me in the morning with a solution calls me as promised. In any case, I may switch providers just on the basis of this awful experience. Truly ridiculous!