Thursday, May 27, 2004

Lowell McAdam is a Bad Executive

Lowell McAdam, COO of Verizon, is a bad executive.

Read all of Cenedella's Verizon horror story. I had virtually the same experience with their customer service call center today.

I'm 58% of the way through my 400-minute billing cycle - but I've used 95% of my minutes. When I called up Verizon to switch my plan, they essentially gave me three options. (compare to $50 if I stay within my 400-minute allowance)

(1) Stay on my current plan. Estimated monthly charge: $177

(2) Switch to 800 minute plan with pro-rated final month on 400-plan. Estimated monthly charge: $135 (They would bill me as if I'd used 381 minutes on a 232-minute plan before switching over to the 800-minute plan tomorrow)

(3) Go to a Verizon store, sign a new two-year contract, and switch retro-actively to the 800-miunte plan. Estimated monthly charge: $70 PLUS I'd have to deal with the same people that nearly drove Marc insane, and I'd be stuck with Verizon even longer that I currently am.

After hanging up in a huff, I called Verizon back. I asked how much it would cost me to cancel my account, and 5 minutes later, everything's taken care of. They will retroactively switch my account to the 800-minutes for the whole month, and I don't have to do another damn thing.

Meanwhile, I've wasted 50 minutes of my life dealing with Verizon and another 15 minutes writing this. If Lowell McAdam could just put a little more effort into helpful customer service, he would probably make his stock options a little more valuable.

As Marc says:
His poor leadership causes his company’s employees to not respect themselves, their customers, or their own company. When you focus on the short-term revenue opportunity rather than the long-term customer relationship, employees get the message. And as that message seeps into their daily routines – trick the customer into spending more money – it invades their hearts as well. And pretty soon, the low way they treat customers becomes the way they think of themselves.


1 comment:

  1. yes   he is horrible  I was wrongfully terminated and wrote him a letter and he did nothing about it ,  I had proof and emails that his Management team was lying about harassing another employee, they are going to let this man perjure  himself under oath. He knows this, they blocked my letters to the board of directors i do have an open letter to  corporate america ( the letter the board wll never see ) to show how Verizon bullys people and are unethical according to their own code of conduct 

    ReplyDelete