I’m going to digress from writing about wine for one evening.

About 85% of Americans have wireless phones, and there is a handful of large wireless providers. These mega providers, much like Time Warner, are so big that the little customer like myself is minor and meaningless to them.

Last week I went to the Verizon Wireless Dealer in Menasha, Wisconsin. I had been a Verizon customer for about a year and they sent me an upgrade offer, so I was looking at switching to a Droid. The salesperson (Tad) indicated it was a good switch and that I wouldn’t lose any functionality (I had a Blackberry). Boy, was he wrong! Not only was he wrong that I wouldn’t lose functionality, it didn’t transfer my ring tones, music, photos and calendar appointments and didn’t let me know that they would be lost if I chose the Droid.

The Droid does not sync calendars, stops working and is not an acceptable phone if you are a business user. I went to Verizon in Sheboygan (because I work in Sheboygan Falls and it was more convenient to go there during the day), but the clerk said he couldn’t help me because the Menasha Store was owned by “Select Communciations” a different owner than the Menasha store and that I would have to go back to the Appleton area to get help. Strike one.

I called the Kaukauna store where I live and asked if they could help. The woman who answered indicated she could. I arrived there at about 6:30 to hopefully get some help resolving it, but there were two customers ahead of me and only one sales person. I waited, and waited, and waited. The first customer finally got done at 7:10. The next customer was helped (she had her daughters with her — I’m guessing 10 and 12 years old). She wanted to transfer contacts from three phones. I didn’t think it would take that long. 7:45 and she’s still being helped with the data transfer and her daughters were also trying on different cases for their Blackberries. It didn’t look like they’d be finished anytime soon (at least not before the store closed at 8pm), and I had other work I had to do and couldn’t wait any longer. Strike two.

I thought the better plan was to call Verizon and let them know what I’d like done, so that when I went back to the Menasha office they would be able to look it up and get everything taken care of in a timely manner. Uh, if you’ve ever talked with a customer service representative on a 1-800 line, you know, they rarely are able to help with issues. It was no different this time. Tasha was reading from her script of what to do when a customer calls with problems (although she said she wasn’t). I asked to talk with a manager and she said that the manager would say the same thing. Strike three.

Moral of the story: 1) do your homework on wireless providers; 2) if you’re looking for a wireless provider, I would not recommend Verizon; 3) do not get the Droid under any circumstances if you use your phone for business; 4) work with someone you know and trust.

I just want to turn back time to when I had my Blackberry and all was good with the world.

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Tags: blackberry, droid, unsatisfied customer, verizon